Data Entry Cards were cards which had seperated fields printed on the card to allow the input of data for specialised applications. These were often used to input data into a specific computer programme, database or to input repetitive data for analysis.

These cards can be specially printed for a single purpose, optimising the amount of data which can be captured on a card by optimising the usage of each punched bit on the card. More generic data entry cards have fixed-length fields (eg. 8 columns per field) which allow for a more flexible use of the card, but may require more columns to be used for each field than necessary.