Unable to import CSV file into photoshop

[Searays2]

Looking for some help and sorry about the long post.

I am trying to do a variable data merge in photoshop to import the photos (individual & team) plus names into a template.

I have had no issues doing this in the past, but now I keep getting an error:

Could not parse the file contents as a data set. The name 'a' is not a variable in the current document.

I had different column names when I started, but have dumbed it down to a, b, c for both my csv file and psd file. No spaces, everything matches, etc.

No matter what I do, I keep getting the error.

I have shut down and restarted the program, my entire computer, uninstalled and reinstalled photoshop and I still get nowhere.

I have tried different templates, used ChatGPT and went through all of what it said to try. After 4 hours of trying everything under the sun...I'm about to give up and manually do Memory Mates and Buttons for 300 orders.

Does anyone have any ideas?

[AlanGilbertson]

Ouch. That's not fun at all.

You obviously have experience with variable data, and it looks like you've tried all the usual suspects. In your situation I would try recreating the CSV from scratch, in case there's an invisible character in there that's messing up the parsing. If you're using a text editor you haven't used before, make sure the character set it saves is UTF-8.

Is this the only merge you're having trouble with, and others work fine?

[Searays2]

Thanks for the suggestion.  I've done that as well.  Just did it again just in case but it still does not work.
I've created a completely new csv file, created a brand new template and I still get the same error.

I'm so lost.

[Searays2]

And I'm using Excel to create my csv file if that helps.

[Stephen Marsh · Accepted solution]

Hard to comment without seeing the csv or psd.

You can try:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/using-datasets/td-p/2665594/page/2#U1...

Or:

https://www.marspremedia.com/software/photoshop/variable-images-from-csv

[Searays2]

Thanks for the links.

Since it wasn't working, I took the leap to learn to write a script.  Actually, ChatGpt did the work and I tested and tweaked.

It is working great so far and I think I will use this method going forward.

[Stephen Marsh]

@Searays2 

Is the script leveraging native variables as in my first link?

Or does the script totally bypass using variables/datasets as the second link?

[AlanGilbertson]

We're all into Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude for fast custom scripts. There is a plug-in called MATE that is in beta right now (I don't have a link handy) for Photoshop. It is already up and running in InDesign and Illustrator with fantastic success.