I finally percated that when data contains 'ñ' or 'à' it's impossible to parse trought: COPY products FROM '/var/lib/postgres/dadesi.txt' USING DELIMITERS '|' \g it causes: SELECT edicion FROM products; edicion ----------------- España|Nacional <-------puts on the same cell either there's an '|' in the middle!!! but changing 'ñ' for n SELECT edicion FROM products; edicion ----------------- Espana <---------------it separates cells ok so what's my solution for a text to COPY containing such characters? Postgresql 7.0.2 Debian GNU/Linux 2.2 I have LANG=es_ES on postmaster.init best regards, jaume