Creating CSV files

Introduction

Many of us continue to use spreadsheets for customer databases. It might be enough if you have five or ten customers, but to make your business grow you need an effective tool, like CRM.

This step by step guide will show you how to save an existing spreadsheet as a CSV file.

Step 1. Access the Documents

Enter your ONLYOFFICE portal and click the Documents link.

In case you have already logged in to the portal and been using it for some time, to access the Documents module, open the drop-down list in the top left corner of the page and select the corresponding option.

Step 2. Open your spreadsheet

The My documents folder opens.

Locate your spreadsheet and click the Edit icon - Pencil icon to the right or use the Edit option from the context menu. The file will open in the new tab.

Using filters and sorting your documents will facilitate the search of the necessary spreadsheet.

To open the file stored on your hard disk drive, first upload it to Documents clicking the Upload Upload button button in the upper left corner of the page and selecting the Upload files option.

You can also start a new spreadsheet right on the portal clicking the Create button in the upper left corner and selecting the Spreadsheet option from the drop-down list.

Step 3. Edit your spreadsheet

For a correct data import you must follow some general rules:

the first row is a header record containing column/field names;
To add a header record, select the first row with the mouse. Right-click and follow Insert >> Entire row. An empty row will be inserted above the row you selected. Enter the necessary column/field names.
the required fields are: First Name and Last Name for importing persons, Company Name for importing companies;
To add a new column (eg. if the First Name and the Last Name are indicated in the same column to separate them or just to add some more information) to your spreadsheet, select a column before which you want the new column added. Right-click and follow Insert >> Entire column. The new column will be inserted to the left of the selected one. Enter the necessary values.
there is one contact record per row.

By default, when you work on your document, Spreadsheet Editor automatically saves it each 2 seconds preventing the data loss in case of the unexpected program closing. If you need, you can easily disable the Autosave feature on the 'Advanced Settings' page, but in such case don't forget to use the File icon

icon to save the changes.

Step 4. Save your spreadsheet as a CSV file

CSV (comma-separated values) represents a simple file format that is widely supported by various applications, e.g. text editors. Such files store tabular data in the plain-text form.

To save your spreadsheet as a .csv file, switch to the File tab at the top toolbar, select the Download as... option at the left sidebar and choose the CSV format.

The Choose CSV Options window will open. Select Unicode (UTF-8) as the Encoding type and Comma as the Delimiter to separate the values in your file. Otherwise the file could not be loaded to CRM at all or the information will be displayed incorrectly.

Click the OK button to start saving your file.

By default, the created CSV file will be saved in the Downloads folder on your hard disk drive. Now you can proceed to importing contacts to CRM.

In the same way you can convert any spreadsheet you need to the CSV format.

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