Import file formats

You can use the predefined formats or create a comma delimited CSV or TEXT file.

DC and JobXML files are not imported; instead create a job from these files. See To create a local job.

Select from the following predefined formats:

  • CSV Grid points E‑N

    The data must be in the format Name, Easting, Northing, Elevation, Code

  • CSV Grid points N‑E

    The data must be in the format Point Name, Northing, Easting, Elevation, Code

  • CSV Lines

    The data must be in the format Start Point Name, End Point Name, Start Station,

  • CSV Global Lat-long points
  • Surpac

To be successfully imported, points in Global and local geographic coordinates must have a height.

If the Comma Delimited (*.CSV, *.TXT) option is selected, you can specify the format of the data that is received. Five fields appear: Point name, Point code, Northing, Easting, and Elevation. If description fields are enabled for the job, there are two additional fields to configure. Select Unused if a particular value is not present in the file being received.

When opening linked CSV files or importing any of the predefined CSV file formats, Trimble Access automatically detects if the file is using UTF-8 character encoding. If UTF-8 is not detected, Trimble Access assumes the data is using ASCII/Multibyte encoding.

Where possible, Trimble recommends standardizing on UTF-8 for your CSV files, because it can encode any character in Unicode. ASCII/Multibyte encoding is locale-specific and so may not encode all characters correctly.

If the comma‑delimited file you are importing contains 'null elevations' that are defined as something other than null, for example a 'dummy' elevation such as ‑99999, you can configure the format of the Null elevation and the Trimble Access software converts these 'null elevations' to real null elevations inside the job.

The Null elevation value is also used when points are imported or copied from linked CSV files.

If Advanced geodetics is enabled, then for most file formats you must specify the Coordinate type of the points in the file.

You can create a transformation when you import grid local points, but you cannot use the grid local points from the file you are about to import unless that file has already been liked to the current job.

Predefined import file formats are defined using XSLT stylesheet (*.xsl) definition files. They are typically located in the Trimble Data\System Files folder.

The predefined stylesheet definitions are provided in English. Translated stylesheet files are typically stored in the appropriate language folder.

The location of the folder depends on the controller operating system:

  • Windows: C:\Program Files\Trimble\General Survey\Languages\<language>
  • Android: <Device name>\Trimble Data\Languages\<language>