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Can't get Excel import to work at all - any ideas?

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Roy22:

--- Quote ---If there is, you won't be able to add them without overwriting what you're importing now.
--- End quote ---

I'm not looking to overwrite this Actor data in future, simply trying to automatically add what I've got now as a one-off.


--- Quote ---Neither. It works as described.
--- End quote ---

Well I can promise you that I wouldn't be wasting my time (and yours) if it worked flawlessly for me.  I'm curious that you did your experiment with CSV data, when my post was about Excel problems and the current manual says:


--- Quote ---The best tool for doing that is a spreadsheet. If you have Excel, use that and the Excel import plugin.
--- End quote ---

I did briefly try CSV, amid hours of variations, but I don't think I even saw the 'merge options' dialogue appear so reverted to Excel.  I stopped trying to use 'Path' early on and changed to ID followed by Actors as the only two columns in the Excel file, both with & without headers in row 1.

I'm using Excel 2003, and saving in the default .xls format in the absence of any other instructions in the manual.  It did cross my mind that Excel versions might matter, but it was one variable I didn't try.  Is it likely to matter?

rick.ca:

--- Quote ---I'm curious that you did your experiment with CSV data
--- End quote ---

I did not use a CSV file, although I'm sure that would have worked as well. I was only pointing out the names in my actor data were separated by commas—as you said yours are—to rule that out as a possible cause of your issue.


--- Quote ---It did cross my mind that Excel versions might matter, but it was one variable I didn't try.  Is it likely to matter?
--- End quote ---

Not if you're using the 2003 XLS format.

Have you configured the Excel plugin, specifying the fields in exactly the same order they appear in the worksheet. All you need to do is include [ID] and [Actors], and make those the first two columns of your worksheet.

Roy22:

--- Quote ---All you need to do is include [ID] and [Actors], and make those the first two columns of your worksheet.
--- End quote ---

Yes, that's all I did in the end, and even for tests of just two or three Actors names to add, it didn't do.

rick.ca:
If you post your test worksheet, I'll try it. You'll have to zip it, or change it's extension to TXT.

Roy22:
rick.ca,

Thanks for the offer, but I owe you an apology, as somewhere in all this I think I got confused between ID (numeric?) and Title, and may have wasted quite some time in this confusion. 

The other issue which put me off the scent, is that there seems to be some practical limit when running the Excel import.  The original 1300 or so line Excel sheet would lead to a crash with a message from PVD about Continue/Abort etc, but would always end with nothing changed.  A bit of trial & error has lead to 600 records at a time being targeted successfully for update, so I can get it to work in a few goes with the import sheet cut-down into smaller ones.  I'm not sure exactly sure what the limit is, or if it derives from PVD itself or something related to my hardware/software setup, but there does appear to be one beyond which no import will work.

It might be worth your while finding out if there is one, and if so adding it to the manual, to save others a lot of time.

Cheers,

Roy22

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