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What's a DLF file?

If you are bidding on a Department of Defense (DoD) related job your document set may contain a file named index.dlf. This contains a list of the JEDMICS C4 image files contained in the document set, usually with titles, revision numbers, restrictions, etc. This information about the file is called metadata.

JEDMICS stands for Joint Engineering Data Management Information and Control System. 'Joint' refers to the cooperation between all the services.

Contractors to the DoD are often required to submit their completed drawings, parts lists and the like as JEDMICS data sets (Trix Conversion Services creates these data sets as a service to contractors).

Opening a DLF file

It's very simple to open a DLF file so you can see the and use the contents. Just start up a spreadsheet application such as Excel. Use File - Open and navigate to the folder containing index.dlf. You'll have to select 'All files', as shown below, in order for the .dlf file to show up in the list.

Screen shot of selection of index.dlf file

Click on Open. You'll see a text import wizard. In Excel it looks like this:

Click on Next. Check the 'Other' box and enter a pipe (the | symbol) in the box to the right.

Click on Next again and then Finish. Your spreadsheet will open to display all the data. There are lots of columns. You can find a full definition of the fields at the JEDMICS official websites. Different DoD sites may use slightly different field names. But the ones you probably most need are likely to be:

Column	What it is
A	The number you'll see on the actual drawing or document.
G	The title of the drawing (it's limited to the first 40 characters so it may appear to be cut off at the end.)
T (to the left of the column which is usually all 'C4')	The file name. Once you have this you can search the document set (usually in a folder named IMAGES) for the file to open. Our Trix DrawingCenter viewer will open the files so you can print them out and mark them up for costing and quoting.

Save the spreadsheet as an XLS file and use it instead of the INDEX.DLF file.