Support, News and Updates

Support

Importing contacts from an Excel CSV (comma-delimited ASCII) file into FaxTalk

FaxTalk can import contact information saved in a CSV (Comma Separated Values comma-delimited ASCII) format into a FaxTalk phonebook. If you have contact information stored in another application that can save or export the contact data to a comma-delimited ASCII format file you can then import the contact data into FaxTalk.

Note: FaxTalk requires that the data is separated by commas. It will not recognize any other character used for the list separator. See changing the list separator instructions below for more details.

Converting Microsoft Excel .xls or xlsx spreadsheets to a .CSV file

If your original data is stored in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet in native Excel XLS format, you will need to first open the spreadsheet in your version of Microsoft Excel and save a copy of this file in .CSV format by clicking on File, Save As… menu option, and select the CSV (MS DOS) format save as option.  This will create a CSV formatted file (yourspreadsheetname.csv) from the Excel Spreadsheet (yourspreadsheetname.xls).  You can then import the .CSV file into FaxTalk following the steps below.

To import contacts into a FaxTalk phonebook:

  1. Open the FaxTalk application.
  2. On the View menu, click Folder List.
  3. Click the phonebook where you want the imported contacts to appear (such as the Contacts folder).
  4. On the File menu, click Import. The Phonebook Import Wizard will appear
  5. Select the Text File (Comma Separated Values) selection from the list.IMPORTANT: If you have your CSV file open in another application, such as Excel, an error message may appear when you attempt to import the data. Close down all applications including Excel before performing the import.
  6. Follow the directions on the Phonebook Import Wizard to import the contacts.

When you import contacts from a comma separated value file the import wizard in FaxTalk provides you with a method for mapping individual fields in the import file to the fields in the FaxTalk phonebook. You can use this capability to ensure the data is imported correctly into the desired fields and you can also choose to not import specific fields if desired.

To change the mapping of a field you would select the desired field in the Import Fields column and then click the Change Mapping button. Then select the field from the list of available fields.

If you want to avoid having to use the field mapping capability in the import wizard to ensure that the field layout of the comma separated file is in the exact format as the FaxTalk phonebook you can create your comma separated file with the following field order to ensure that the import process will go smoothly:

First Name
Last Name
Company
Home Fax
Home Phone
Business Fax
Business Phone
Mobile Phone
Address 1
Address 2
City
State
Zip
Country
Email
Notes

At the minimum you must have data in the First Name field as well as one of the fax fields. Otherwise you do not need to include data in every field but you should have each field defined even if there is no data in the field.

Changing the list separator to a comma

FaxTalk requires that the list separator is a comma. Windows defaults to using the comma “,” as the default separator but this value may have been changed.

For Microsoft Windows 10, right-click the Start button, and then click Settings. In previous versions of Microsoft Windows, click the Start button, and then click Control Panel.

For Microsoft Windows 10, Click Time & Language, and then click Region in the left panel. In previous versions of Windows, Under Clock, Language, and Region, click Change date, time, or number formats.

For Microsoft Windows 10, In the main panel, under Regional settings, click Additional date, time, and regional settings. Under Region, click Change date, time, or number formats. In the Region dialog, on the Format tab, click Additional settings. In previous versions of Windows, In the Region dialog, on the Format tab, click Additional settings.

In the Customize Format dialog, on the Numbers tab, type a character to use as the new separator (comma) “,” in the List separator box.

Click OK twice.

Note: After you change the list separator character for your computer, all programs use the new character as a list separator. You can change the character back to the default character by following the same procedure.

no comments

Leave a reply