You should try and arrange the columns in Excel to match the TB address book structure:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Import_address_list_from_text_file

An alternate method is to export the contacts as vCards and import to TB with the help of an add-on.

OK, i figured out how to delete and move columns in excel (acyually Libre Calc). It appears the file columns need to "line up" with TB columns....right? All I need is name and email...suggestions?

thanks, Gene

Edit your spreadsheet down to just 5 columns, with the first row labelled First Name, Last Name, Display Name, Nickname, Primary Email. Leave a column empty if you don't use it. When you import the csv, check that the input columns match the Address book fields using move up/down.

Tools/Import...Address books...Text file... select Comma separated in the File type filter (defaults to LDIF), select the csv.

Can anyone explain? CSV file with up to 6 columns. (First Name, Last Name, Display Name, Nickname, Primary Email, Company). The scv import tool with commas does not import First Name, Last Name, Display Name the first time. The next time you run the tool, with the same csv file and settings, only Display Name is imported :(

Example csv: First Name, Last Name, Display Name, Nickname, Primary Email, Company Miroslawa Witecka,,dyr.Miroslawa Witecka,,kontakt@pm109.elodz.edu.pl,PRZEDSZKOLE NR 109 - Z MALGORZATA FRASZ,,dyr.MALGORZATA FRASZ,,kontakt@pm97.elodz.edu.pl,PRZEDSZKOLE NR 97 Malgorzata Tomczak,,dyr.Malgorzata Tomczak,,kontakt@pm139.elodz.edu.pl,PRZEDSZKOLE NR 139

How to win with this tool?

Your csv should not have spaces before the field labels, i.e. the first line should be:

First Name,Last Name,Display Name,Nickname,Primary Email,Company

With that change, the csv imports correctly (see picture), but you have to click the 'Move Up' button for Organization in the left column so it lines up with Company in the right column.

You might want to also change the records so the First and Last names are entered, e.g. the first contact should be:

Miroslawa,Witecka,dyr.Miroslawa Witecka,,kontakt@pm109.elodz.edu.pl,PRZEDSZKOLE NR 109 - Z

That way, the contacts will appear in Address Book for any setting of View/Show Name As.

Thank you for the advice. At the beginning I removed the spaces from the beginning and end of each record. The effect is the same. There are two different results of importing a file. I attach screenshots.

imported file: First Name,Last Name,Display Name,Nickname,Primary Email,Company Mirosława,Witecka,dyr.Mirosława Witecka,,kontakt@pm109.elodz.edu.pl,PRZEDSZKOLE MIEJSKIE NR 109 - Z ODDZIAŁAMI INTEGRACYJNYMI MAŁGORZATA,FRASZCZYŃSKA-SADOWSKA,dyr.MAŁGORZATA FRASZCZYŃSKA-SADOWSKA,,kontakt@pm97.elodz.edu.pl,PRZEDSZKOLE MIEJSKIE NR 97 MAŁGORZATA,Tomczak,dyr.Małgorzata Tomczak,,kontakt@pm139.elodz.edu.pl,PRZEDSZKOLE MIEJSKIE NR 139

I've done some tests and find similar results, which are odd, to say the least.

With this csv: First Name,Last Name,Display Name,Nickname,Primary Email,Company Miroslawa,Witecka,dyr.Miroslawa Witecka,,kontakt@pm109.elodz.edu.pl,PRZEDSZKOLE NR 109 - Z MALGORZATA,FRASZ,dyr.MALGORZATA FRASZ,,kontakt@pm97.elodz.edu.pl,PRZEDSZKOLE NR 97 Malgorzata,Tomczak,dyr.Malgorzata Tomczak,,kontakt@pm139.elodz.edu.pl,PRZEDSZKOLE NR 139

the records import, but only the First, Last and Email appear for a contact.

With this csv: First Name,Last Name,Display Name,Nickname,Primary Email,Company Mirosława,Witecka,dyr.Mirosława Witecka,,kontakt@pm109.elodz.edu.pl,PRZEDSZKOLE MIEJSKIE NR 109 - Z ODDZIAŁAMI INTEGRACYJNYMI MAŁGORZATA,FRASZCZYŃSKA-SADOWSKA,dyr.MAŁGORZATA FRASZCZYŃSKA-SADOWSKA,,kontakt@pm97.elodz.edu.pl,PRZEDSZKOLE MIEJSKIE NR 97 MAŁGORZATA,Tomczak,dyr.Małgorzata Tomczak,,kontakt@pm139.elodz.edu.pl,PRZEDSZKOLE MIEJSKIE NR 139

only the Display Name and Organization appear for a contact. So, there are no common records in the two address books, and I can't see that the presence of special characters in the 2nd one explains the difference.

Edit: With TB 70b2, the first csv appears to import, but it shows no contacts. The second imports correctly (see picture). The text encoding of the successful csv import had been changed to UTF-8 Unicode. When the encoding of the first was converted from Western 1252 W. European to UTF-8, it then imported correctly. UTF-8 encoding did not affect the results in TB 68.1.

Thank you very much for your time :) Isn't that weird? Just reading the next fragments of the text string to find the next comma and writing in the database fields until the end of the line is reached, but it doesn't work properly :( I will keep testing.

It's also odd that when you're at the import dialog where the categories are moved up or down, you can step through the csv (click Next, Previous) and see that all the records are read in their proper places, but not when the process is finished.

I imported a csv to Gmail, but there too, the First Name and Last Name records were not imported.

If I had hundreds of contacts to import, I'd be inclined to install 70b2 in a separate directory, run it in its own profile, import the csv, export it to LDIF, then import the LDIF to 68.1 (or copy the abook.mab from one profile to the other).

I'm not aware of any changes to importing between TB 60 and 68, let alone 68 and 70, but this is an operation that should be nearly bullet-proof, given the frequency of its application.

The CardBook add-on can import vcf and csv files, and applying it to the Unicode csv above provides a correct result.