Data Conversion Tools

After January 3, 2008, all electronically filed reports uploaded to the FEC contain the ASCII 28 value as the field delimiter. The FEC Convert Tools have been created to facilitate the viewing of these reports. The tools provided on this page contain an excel macro (ViewFECfiling.xls) for converting uploaded *.fec reports to a MS Excel spreadsheet, and a conversion executable file (fs2comma.exe) to convert *.fec reports to a CSV (comma separated variable) file.

Download the Data Conversion Tools:

Click the following link download.nictusa.com/dl/FECConvertTools.zip

This will open a download session window. Left click once on the "Save" button, select the desired location for saving the file, your Desktop for instance, and start the download.

Instructions: Viewing FEC Filings Delimited with the ASCII 28 Characters within Excel

Ensure Excel Macro Security is set to "Medium" under the "Tools-->Options-->Security Tab-->Macro Security" button from the menu bar.
Double Left Click on the ViewFECfiling.xls file
Left Click once on the "Enable Macro" button and a window titled "Open" will activate.
Browse for the FEC filing to view within Excel and Select it.
Left Click once on the "Open" button.
The FEC filing will open in Excel separating the fields into different columns based on the new delimiter (ASCII Character 28)

Note: To save the filing in another format, Left Click the "File-->Save as" option on the menu bar

Instructions: Converting FEC Filings Delimited from the ASCII 28 delimiter to Comma Separated Variable (CSV)

Drag and drop any V6.1 FEC Filing onto the fs2comma.exe and a CSV file will be generated.
Command Line Usage:
- fs2comma 123.fec [out.csv]
- If the second parameter is specified, that will be used as the output. if not, 123.csv will be the output

Page last updated December 28, 2007