Title: problem with csv import
Last modified: August 30, 2016

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# problem with csv import

 *  [hgilhoj](https://wordpress.org/support/users/hgilhoj/)
 * (@hgilhoj)
 * [10 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/problem-with-csv-import/)
 * I have a problem when I try to import a CSV file.
    I have a file where some of
   the field entries contain Danish characters.
 * If I merely take an excel sheet and convert it to CSV, the records with Danish
   characters are not imported. The other records come in just fine with all fields
   intact.
 * In order to get the Danish characters in, I saved the CSV as UTF-8 using Notepad.
   Now all records appear but the first field of each record is blank.
 * What am I missing?
 * Btw. thanks for a great and usefull plug-in!
 * [https://wordpress.org/plugins/participants-database/](https://wordpress.org/plugins/participants-database/)

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

 *  Plugin Author [Roland Barker](https://wordpress.org/support/users/xnau/)
 * (@xnau)
 * [10 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/problem-with-csv-import/#post-6801322)
 * When you export your CSV from Excel, you need to configure it to export it as
   UTF-8, it won’t do this by default.
 * If you need to do it with Notepad, make sure the format is correct: don’t start
   a line with a comma, for instance.
 *  Thread Starter [hgilhoj](https://wordpress.org/support/users/hgilhoj/)
 * (@hgilhoj)
 * [10 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/problem-with-csv-import/#post-6801335)
 * I have tried all possible (and probably impossible ways) of converting to CSV
   and UFT8. I cannot see any odd characters in the files.
 * One place recommended to save first from excel to unicode. Then opening in Notepad
   and saving as UTF-8. But no matter how I do it the import bluntly ignores the
   data in the first column and leaves it blank. The Danish characters and all other
   columns are imported ok.
 * I have finally found a workaround. Apparently Google spreadsheet makes the correct
   conversion and it works like a charm. So if others run into problems, this will
   do the trick.
 *  [mygrove](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mygrove/)
 * (@mygrove)
 * [9 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/problem-with-csv-import/#post-8353881)
 * I had this same problem. Even though I saved the CSV from Excel (2010) and selected
   Unicode(UTF-8) in Tools – Web options, it consistently ignored the first column.
 * I happened to re-open the CSV file in Notepad++ which indicated the encoding 
   was actually “UTF-8-BOM”. Notepad++ has the ability to convert the encoding so
   it changed it to UTF-8 alone. Now it imports into PDB as I would expect. Seems
   Excel does not quite “do what it says on the tin”.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

The topic ‘problem with csv import’ is closed to new replies.

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## Tags

 * [csv](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/csv/)
 * [danish](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/danish/)
 * [Excel](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/excel/)
 * [Import](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/import/)
 * [utf-8](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/utf-8/)

 * 3 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [mygrove](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mygrove/)
 * Last activity: [9 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/problem-with-csv-import/#post-8353881)
 * Status: not resolved