How To -- Questions and Answers
| How do I use Import Events From Text File and Export Events? |
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| First this article does not address importing CalendarMaker 4 files. That subject
is covered in a separate How To article. This article also does not cover importing Events From iCal, Birthdays From Address Book, or Holidays. What this How To article does cover is divided into three parts. a) What's the easiest (less powerful) way to import a tab-delimited text file into CalendarMaker 5? b) What format does the Export Events function use? c) What's the complex (powerful) way to import a tab-delimited text file into CalendarMaker 5? - - - - - a) The easiest (and less powerful) way to import tab-delimited text files is to use the CalendarMaker 4 format and import with the function File > Import > Events from CalendarMaker 4 Events Text File. This simple format is just -- mm/dd/yyyy<tab>event text mm/dd/yyyy<tab>event text etc. Be sure and have a carriage return after the last event (or it may skip importing the last event). This method (A) is less powerful because it only includes the date and the text of the event. Information such as time, duration, repeating rules, etc. is not included. CalendarMaker 5 does not have an export in this format. b) What format does CalendarMaker 5 use to export with the function File > Export Events? There are actually two choices here, tab-delimited and comma delimited. We assume the tab-delimited choice in this article. To answer this we need a sample calendar. Click here to see a sample calendar with four events: 1) an All Day event; 2) a Timed event; 3) a Multi-Day event; and 4) a Repeating event. [This picture will open in a separate window. You can move it to a second monitor, or print it and then close it.] Now here's what it that looks like when you Export Events. Lines with a "#" at the beginning are remark statements and are ignored when importing. In this presentation, tabs are shown with the ">" character and line numbers have been added for clarification. (Note:this example uses 24-hour military time.) 1. #"event text">all day flag (0 or 1)>start date (and time if timed event)>end date (and time if timed event)>iCalendar recurrence string>exception dates 2. #ALLDAY_DATEFORMAT=M/d/yy 3. #TIMED_DATEFORMAT=M/d/yy H':'mm 4. Watch football all day>1>1/1/08>1/1/08 5. Return to work in afternoon from 1 to 5>0>1/2/08 13:00>1/2/08 17:00 6. Work all day Thursday through Saturday - catch up>1>1/3/08>1/5/08 7. weekly all day meetings on each Monday this January>1>1/7/08>1/7/08>RRULE:FREQ=WEEKLY;INTERVAL=1;UNTIL=1/28/08;BYDAY=MO It is suggested that you make your own sample calendar and do an Export Events. Study the exported text file in Microsoft Word (or an equivalent application) with invisibles turned on. This will help you learn this format. c) To create a text file for import into CalendarMaker 5, study the example in (b) above and prepare your own test file for learning. The remark lines, the ones that start with an "#", are not required. They are included in the exported text files to explain the file. And, remember to not use line numbers. They are shown above merely to make the file more understandable. |
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