- WE NO LONGER ACCEPT MS EXCEL FILES! If your list is Excel, simply do "Save As" to CSV (MS-DOS) format; do not use CSV (Macintosh). CSV files can still be opened and be manipulated by Ms Excel. CSV is one of the most common file types for lists and all major spreadsheet applications including Google Sheets support this format. We highly recommend after saving your file in CSV format to close the file and open it again and make sure it looks correct.
- Special formatting in Excel: Applying formats make your data look more user-friendly. For instance, a “currency” formatting applied to 1234 can make it appear as $1,234.00. But not all formatting applied in Excel carries over completely to your data; such rules only live in the Excel environment. Below are some of the common formats used in Excel that you should make sure are carried over properly to your CSV file.
- Currency & numerical formatting: Watch for dollar signs, commas, and decimal points.
- Date formats
- Scientific numbers in Excel: Excel may convert cells containing large numbers to a "scientific format". For instance, 3200017600560000000 will be converted to 3.20002E+18. This commonly occurs with parcel APN numbers. In these cases, the merge fields containing these scientific numbers will be incorrect. Most of the time you can fix this issue by changing your format to a "number format" with zero decimals.
- Losing the zero at the beginning of the zip code starting with a zero. Generally, this issue is resolved by designating the column/field to be a “text” format.
- How to ensure your CSV file contains the correct format: Open the CSV file in a standard text editor such as Windows Notepad application. What is shown in Notepad is the “raw” data; this is what will be printed in your mailers.
- Multiple tabs in Excel:CSV files do not support multi-tab worksheets. Only the current tab in Excel is saved into a CSV file when you do a Save-as to CSV.
- Formulas in Excel: These are mathematical equations that only live in Excel. When you do a Save-as into CSV, the value results of these formulas are saved in the CSV file. But you must confirm the accuracy of this conversion by opening your CSV file in Notepad as explained above.
- Field length: Field length cannot exceed 75 characters; anything beyond the 75th character is deleted. This 75 character limit includes everything such as spaces or any special characters such as commas or periods. This is the length of the data inside the column/field.
- Header: The first row of your list must contain the header for your fields. The header is the title for each one of your fields; for instance, "FIRST" is the header for the field containing your first names.
- Multiple lists: You can upload multiple lists and combine as many of the lists as you wish to use for a job.
- Uploading your lists: After uploading your list, you will need to map each column/field in your list for a certain purpose, e.g. you will map your field OWNER_FNAME to “First Name”. All the fields/columns you intend to use in this job must be mapped to a field. If your list has extra fields/column that is not needed for this job; you should leave them mapped as “Don’t include”. See the options below if you have a field in your list that we do not show an exact map name.
- Date related: For instance, you have a field for “expiration date” but we don’t have such a map field. There are three “date” fields called Date1, Date2, Date3 which can be mapped to any date-related field in your list. Therefore you can map “expiration date” to Date1.
- Amount related: The same concept as above. We offer three amount fields (Amount1, Amount2, and Amount3) that can be used to be mapped to any field in your list that is amount-related.
- If you have any additional fields in your list where you don’t find an appropriate map name, then use any of the ten Misc. fields we have; Misc1 to Misc10.
- If you chose any of the map names (Date, Amount, or Misc) from the above three steps then you must modify the tags in your letter/envelope (the placeholder where the merge fields are to be inserted) to correspond to our “map” names. For instance, if you used the map name Date1 for your “expiration date” then you need to modify the tag for the “expiration date” in the letter to Date1. Essentially you need to tell us where to insert the Date1 in the letter.
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Available system fields which you need to map to |
| Full Name | Zip | Property Zip | Legal Description | Misc3 |
| First Name 1 | Zip4 | Property County | Subdivision | Misc4 |
| Last Name 1 | Country | Amount1 | Type | Misc5 |
| First Name 2 | Reference No | Amount2 | Acres | Misc6 |
| Middle Name1 | APN | Amount3 | Return Name | Misc7 |
| Last Name 2 | Phone | Date1 | Return Address | Misc8 |
| Company | Salutation | Date2 | Return City | Misc9 |
| Address 1 | Email | Date3 | Return State | Misc10 |
| Address 2 | Property Address | Expiration Date | Return Zip | |
| City | Property City | Closing Date | Misc1 | |
| State | Property State | Mail Date | Misc2 | |
Name field: We highly recommend having the first, last, and middle name in separate fields but it is not required. If your first, last, and middle name are combined in one field, then you will not be able to use only one part of the name in your letter by itself. For instance, if the entire name is combined in one field, you cannot use the first name only for salutation.
Capitalization: Only the capitalization on your mailing address is modified to "initial cap". This helps the mail piece look less like a junk mail and "initial capped" text occupies less space on the mailpiece vs. "all capped" text. The capitalization on all other fields is left unchanged.