In Records mode, the first column of each line is a page element identification and will indicate to FormTrap which part of the form it should print. The rest of the line is comprised of fields that have a fixed start position and a fixed length. The figure below shows a sample records mode data file.

Records starting with 0 contain data for the Base page. Almost all form designs include Record 0. Data on the Base page is document based (e.g. invoice number, customer and address) and consistent on each page. When FormTrap sees a 0 identifier in the first column it starts a new document. Good practice is to place a literal identifying the document content as the first field (i.e. 0Invoice...).

Lines starting with uppercase A through Z identify detail lines. When FormTrap sees an A-Z identifier in the first Column it will print the corresponding detail line.

Lines starting with lowercase a through j identify explicit group headers. When FormTrap sees an a-j identifier in the first column it will print the corresponding group header.

Lines starting with 1 through 9 identify sub-forms. When FormTrap sees a 1-9 identifier in the first column it will print the corresponding sub-form. Sub-forms are used to print conditional information that may occur only once in the data.