# Flat representation properties

* Newline type: Select whether you want to define a newline based on your platform or specify a custom one.
* Newline character: Enter the character sequence that represents a newline.
* Delimiter: Enter the character used to separate values.
* Number of initial rows to skip: Enter the number of rows from the beginning of the file to skip.
* Output Delimited Header?: Select this check box to add a delimited header to the output file generated.
* Physical encoding: Select the type of physical encoding. When using binary encoding, numeric values are formatted using their binary formats, for example a data type Integer (32) is formatted as 4 bytes.
* Number encoding: Select the type of number encoding for binary numeric values.
* Padding character: Enter the character to be used when padding.
* Is positional?: Select this check box to set the size of all elements as their maximum size and set them all as mandatory.
* Is truncatable: Select this check box if it is acceptable for positional trailing leaf elements to be omitted.
* Output as delimited?: Select this check box to have children of row element to be output as delimited.
* Binary encode decimals: Select this checkbox if you want decimals to be output without a decimal sign and left padded with zeros.
* Pad repeating elements to minimum occurs?: Select this check box to automatically add empty elements to any element that occurs where the actual number of iterations is lower than the minimum required number.
* Ignore ambiguous inits/terms: Select this check box to handle optional elements sequentially in the order in which they appear.
* Row element: Select the element that identifies where a new row begins.
* Character encoding: Specify the character encoding for the data to be processed. For more information, see [Character encoding](https://help.qlik.com/talend/en-US/data-mapper-user-guide/8.0/character-encoding).
* Trim whitespace on input?: Select this checkbox to automatically remove any leading or trailing whitespace from the input data for all elements. The non-leading or trailing whitespace is not affected.
* Pad to minimum length on output?: Select this checkbox to pad the output to the minimum size with either spaces (character) or zeros (binary).
* Enforce zero scale on output decimals?: Select this checkbox if you want to remove all fractional digits for Decimal elements with the Decimal Places property set to 0.
* Decimal sign is implied on output: Select this checkbox if you do not want the decimal sign to appear in the output.

### In this section

* [COBOL Considerations](https://help.qlik.com/talend/en-US/data-mapper-user-guide/8.0-R2026-09/cobol-considerations)