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mirco.raddatz
mirco.raddatz
Participant
December 4, 2017
Answered

Data Merge, Encoding of CSV File, InDesign crash

  • December 4, 2017
  • 3 replies
  • 9230 views

Hi,

I try to put data from a csv file into my document. I tried every encoding (Win 1252, ISO-8859-1, ISO-8859-15, UTF-8) for my csv file but the German special characters like ä, ö or ü are never displayed properly in preview mode. I am using SublimeText v3 to change the encoding of my csv file.

And in addition, InDesign crashes whenever I execute the data merge.

I am working with the latest InDesign CC on a MacBook Pro 15', Mid 2014 on MacOS HighSierra 10.13.1 for the German language.

Looking forward to your experiences or feedback.

Kind regards,

Mirco

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Loic.Aigon
vinny38

Thanks fir the reference. Much appreciated.

I would also recommend tab delimited text but just to be useful, I have been told UTF-16 works better with CSV.

FWIW

Loic

3 replies

A
antone8227487
Participant
April 25, 2018

Hi,

Here is what has worked for me on MacOS High Sierra:

Open Sublime (I am using Sublime editor version 3)

Paste text

File > Save with encoding > UTF-16 LE

Hope this helps.

    K
    Kārlis
    Participating Frequently
    August 1, 2024

    Thank youuuuuu!!

    vinny38
    vinny38
    Legend
    December 4, 2017

    Have you tried tab delimited .txt file instead of CSV?

    Being French, I do deal with many funny characters such as ç, â, à,ù or œ... and tab delimited .txt are my friends.

    Now, if you still experience trouble, maybe @Loic.Aigon can help you out there... He's a data merge specialist ^^

      Loic.Aigon
      Loic.AigonCorrect answer
      Legend
      December 5, 2017
      vinny38

      Thanks fir the reference. Much appreciated.

      I would also recommend tab delimited text but just to be useful, I have been told UTF-16 works better with CSV.

      FWIW

      Loic

        mirco.raddatz
        mirco.raddatzAuthor
        Participant
        December 5, 2017

        Thank you for your help!

        Using UTF-16 with tab as the delimiter for the csv works perfect!

        Kind regards,

        Mirco

        MW Design
        MW Design
        Inspiring
        December 4, 2017

        When using UTF-8, are you using UTF-8 without BOM (Byte Order Mark)?

        I don't have a rental at the moment and so cannot try the very latest version. But the last CC version I did use, it worked fine as an UTF-8 no BOM.

        Mike

        mirco.raddatz
        mirco.raddatzAuthor
        Participant
        December 4, 2017

        Yes, it is UTF-8 plain. no BOM. Excel exports the BOM-version but Sublime stores in "real" UTF-8 format.

        MW Design
        MW Design
        Inspiring
        December 4, 2017

        Could you open and strip the data out of the file with the exception of the data filed names, resave it and upload it to dropbox or the like and provide a download link? And though it will be a small KB file, if you would ZIP it before uploading it that would ensure the format doesn't change in any way.

        And I agree with vinny--tab delimited is a more assured means of import but I wouldn't think that would be the issue here. But ya never know. ID's data merge hasn't changed in, well, forever so even the version of ID shouldn't matter.

        Mike

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