Datamerge not working with Excel-exported files

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
January 16, 2025
3 replies
556 views

My Excel for Mac (v16.93) recently added features this week, and now spreadsheets exported as .CSV or .TXT aren't recognized by InDesign for datamerge. I'm getting the error that "The data source file you selected either has no records or is not a supported file format. Please fix the file"...

TextEdit recognizes the data, but even after resaving it from there without changes, InDesign still gives me the same error.

Files made from previous dates are recognized (Nov/Dec files)...so it's either an error with the MS update or Adobe.

Anyone else encountering this?

D

D_R_23Author

Participant

Folks - I tried it all again this morning, and the issue seems to have been resolved. Thank you for taking the time to provide ideas and assist me. Until next time 😄

Abhishek Rao

Community Manager

Hey @D_R_23,

Awesome to hear it’s sorted out! If you don't mind sharing what worked for you, it could totally help out anyone else running into the same problem. Always great to get a fresh solution from someone who’s been there!

Thanks!

Abhishek

Joel Cherney

Community Expert

It's not the first time I recall that an Excel update on the Mac (or an update to InDesign!) changed some kind of default regarding saving raw text or CSV or tab-delimited text.

First step is to answer Robert's question. This may be best done by opening up the file, doing a Save As, and then picking a format there. That way, there's no doubt regarding what format your data is in currently.
Next, go to your Data Merge panel and Select Data Source. InDesign will spawn a dialog that lets you pick your file. Right next to your "Open" button at the bottom, there's an "Import Options" checkbox. Make sure it is checked.
Once you've clicked on Open, you'll see a dialog which will allow you to pick the platform and encoding of your data source. Match 'em to whatever you specified in 1. above. It may take you a bit of trial and error to make the correct selections, if e.g. Excel now saves out CSV with Windows-platform format even when you're on a Mac.

D

D_R_23Author

Participant

Those are good suggestions, but the error pops up immediately after selecting the file as a data source, so it doesn't even get to open it. We're 100% Mac, so a PC solution would be difficult if this is a persistent problem, and not efficient.

I have discovered two workarounds with varying success.

(1) Using the online Office 365 app (closest option to finding a PC), I could export a .CSV, but I don't recall being able to choose the encoding format for the file, so some of the characters being imported didn't covert correctly, such as the apostrophes.

(2) Apple's Numbers program was more successful, opening the Excel file and then exporting it as a .CSV, and the best encoding formatting to avoid character substitutions was the MS-DOS format.

Unfortunately, I'll be getting spreadsheets from others using Excel, so I'd prefer it to work correctly again for maximum efficiency, and not sure if my issue is being encountered yet by others. If it's just me, then I may have to consider software install issues.