Import guest details from an Excel spreadsheet

If you already have guest information in a Microsoft Excel™ spreadsheet you can import it, rather than re-typing it.

Note The user interface of Excel may differ between different versions and operating systems.

  1. Open your Excel spreadsheet in Excel (Note We can accept no liability for you installing or using third party software).

  2. Select File|Save as... .

  3. In Save as type select CSV (comma delimited) (*.csv). (see note below regarding names with non-English/Unicode characters)

  4. Choose an appropriate File name.

  5. Click Save.

  6. Exit Excel.

  7. Start PerfectTablePlan.

  8. Select File| Import|Guest data... . An Open window will be displayed.

  9. Select the Excel .csv file you just created.

  10. Leave the Format as Excel CSV.

  11. Select the appropriate guest properties from the drop-down lists in each Preview table column. For example select last name at the top of the column if the column contains guest last names.

  1. Edit the contents of the cells as appropriate. Use Add row and Delete row to add and remove rows. You can also add and delete fields if you want to add extra data that isn't in the spreadsheet, e.g. addresses.

  2. Click the OK button. The guest data should now be imported.

Note If your spreadsheet contains non-ASCII characters (e.g. Chinese or other Unicode characters) these may be lost when you save your Excel .xls file to a .csv file. To avoid this problem save as Unicode text (*.txt) and import using Custom format a TAB delimiter.

If you wish to import guests as couples, families and/or group you need to:

  1. have a groups column in your spreadsheet

  2. use the same name in the group column for each person in the couple, family or group

  3. make this column the group field during import

These guests will then be placed in the same group with the proximity you select from the Proximity for guests in the same group drop-down. You can easily change the proximity later in the Groups pane by right clicking on the group and selecting the appropriate proximity.

For more information see Import data window and the Microsoft Excel™ documentation.

The procedure should be similar for other applications - just export a text/CSV file and then use File| Import|Guest data... to import it.

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