Is there a way to import products description data with line breaks using Excel, etc?

[William Davis]

Is there a way to import products description data with line breaks using Excel, etc... so when viewing the product through MM Admin the product description is formatted accordingly?

Example:

<b>Line 1:</b> ABC
<b>Line 2:</b> abc

[lesliekirk]

Re: Is there a way to import products description data with line breaks using Excel,

Try

<b>Line 1:</b> ABC<br />
<b>Line 2:</b> abc<br />

[William Davis]

Re: Is there a way to import products description data with line breaks using Excel,

Leslie, I actually tried the following, but it only displays well on the site, but not in Admin:

<b>Line 1:</b> ABC</br>
<b>Line 2:</b> abc</br>

On the Admin it displays in one single line:

<b>Line 1:</b> ABC</br><b>Line 2:</b> abc</br>

Excel has the ability to perform multiple line breaks within each cell, and exporting in *.CSV format with a pipe ("|") delimiter without a problem. It only becomes a problem during importing due to multiple line breaks with unpredictable consequences. Such as creating new and/or editing exiting records.

In one instance importing 10 new records, created 6 new records and updated 18!

[sbronstad]

Re: Is there a way to import products description data with line breaks using Excel,

<b> is not a break tag... it's a bold tag. Use <br> for single line or <p> for double line break. Break tags do not need to be escaped </

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: Is there a way to import products description data with line breaks using Excel,

Excel is using "line feed" which is not recognized by unix based systems (aka Merchant). These use Linefeed/Carriage Return.

The only way i know how to preserve these is to copy the data out of excel, paste in a unix compatible editor (i use TextPad) and make sure i save the file as Unix compatible.

[sbronstad]

Re: Is there a way to import products description data with line breaks using Excel,

good point... never use excel to export (and be very careful importing with excel as well). Excel, like all good Microsoft products, are much smarter than you are, and knows better than you do what you REALLY mean to do with your data (watch it butcher zip codes, phone numbers, numbers with leading zeros, dates, long numbers, etc.-- import those fields as "text only")

Copy the info you want to import into miva, and paste it into a text editor, such as notepad... but be careful for long dashes and fancy quotes...

[William Davis]

Re: Is there a way to import products description data with line breaks using Excel,

Thanks!

[William Davis]

Re: Is there a way to import products description data with line breaks using Excel,

Excel is using "line feed" which is not recognized by unix based systems (aka Merchant). These use Linefeed/Carriage Return.

The only way i know how to preserve these is to copy the data out of excel, paste in a unix compatible editor (i use TextPad) and make sure i save the file as Unix compatible.

Bruce, I tried your suggestion, but it did not work, could you please elaborate.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: Is there a way to import products description data with line breaks using Excel,

Bruce, I tried your suggestion, but it did not work, could you please elaborate.

I don't know if i can...the only thing i can add is, the text editor you are using should allow you to show formatting characters. Turn that on...you should see the line feed/carriage return character at the end of lines. If not, then the problem is in how the file gets to Excel...

[William Davis]

Re: Is there a way to import products description data with line breaks using Excel,

I don't know if i can...the only thing i can add is, the text editor you are using should allow you to show formatting characters. Turn that on...you should see the line feed/carriage return character at the end of lines. If not, then the problem is in how the file gets to Excel...

Bruce, we currently run a MM4.24 MVM5.06 OpenUI 4.958/4.984 Store, and use StoreMan4 3.61.

1. Would our current store support additional product fields? If, so
2. Would our current StoreMan support additional product fields? If, so
3. Can we import data to additional product fields? If so,
4. Can we later transfer the data from our current MM4.24 store to our MM5.5 store when we go live?

Thanks

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: Is there a way to import products description data with line breaks using Excel,

Bruce, we currently run a MM4.24 MVM5.06 OpenUI 4.958/4.984 Store, and use StoreMan4 3.61.

1. Would our current store support additional product fields? If, so
2. Would our current StoreMan support additional product fields? If, so
3. Can we import data to additional product fields? If so,
4. Can we later transfer the data from our current MM4.24 store to our MM5.5 store when we go live?

Thanks

1) Not without resorting to either an additional module (i.e., VC Additional Product fields, or worse, OpenUIs additonal product fields (aka OpenLanguages) which, IMO is a disaster waiting to happen. (prone to database corruption for one...impossible to get data out for seconds).

2) Nope. Mainly because there was no native additional fields in 4.

3) see #2

4) yes, but you would need to upgrade to the latest version of StoreMan4 which has a "one-button" transfer feature that can be used with StoreMan5.

[ecentralstores]

Re: Is there a way to import products description data with line breaks using Excel,

Dear William,

One thing I do for importing, HTML product descriptions using an excel spreadsheet is to remove all the white space, from the html doing so will allow you to import this field to the database without the system seeing a TAB or white space that will cause the import to send data to the wrong fields, also if you do not remove the white space from the description when you export the data and open in excel the data will start to appear in the wrong columns. I wouldn't recommend having the admin display the html with line brakes for the reasons stated above. Hope this helps!

[William Davis]

Re: Is there a way to import products description data with line breaks using Excel,

1) Not without resorting to either an additional module (i.e., VC Additional Product fields, or worse, OpenUIs additonal product fields (aka OpenLanguages) which, IMO is a disaster waiting to happen. (prone to database corruption for one...impossible to get data out for seconds).

2) Nope. Mainly because there was no native additional fields in 4.

3) see #2

4) yes, but you would need to upgrade to the latest version of StoreMan4 which has a "one-button" transfer feature that can be used with StoreMan5.

Should we opt to use the Viking CodersAdditional Product Fields Manager module, would I later be able to import those fields into MM5.5 when that store is ready to go live as additional fields?

[William Davis]

Re: Is there a way to import products description data with line breaks using Excel,

Bruce, should we opt to use the Viking Coders Additional Product Fields Manager module, would I later be able to import those fields into MM5.5 when that store is ready to go live as additional fields?

1) Not without resorting to either an additional module (i.e., VC Additional Product fields, or worse, OpenUIs additonal product fields (aka OpenLanguages) which, IMO is a disaster waiting to happen. (prone to database corruption for one...impossible to get data out for seconds).

2) Nope. Mainly because there was no native additional fields in 4.

3) see #2

4) yes, but you would need to upgrade to the latest version of StoreMan4 which has a "one-button" transfer feature that can be used with StoreMan5.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: Is there a way to import products description data with line breaks using Excel,

Should we opt to use the Viking CodersAdditional Product Fields Manager module, would I later be able to import those fields into MM5.5 when that store is ready to go live as additional fields?

Not natively, if i remember correctly, Additional Product fields reference products by ID, so you would need to run an export that would look up the product code, THEN grab the additional fields. If you go this route, we do have a custom script that does this.