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how to load contact data into a unique new Tbird address book

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  • Last reply by david

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I want to use my Tbird address books as my contact data "warehouse." Can someone help me?

Tbird has a set of preferred data attributes for IMPORT into address books. I find articles and postings that discuss (1) create & open an addressbook; (2) browse & select the CSV data file; etc. Where do I find detailed preparation for a CSV that Tbird will digest?

On import, Tbird tries to match file column with Tbird preferred columns. This never works for me. I routinely see whole records with multiple "quoted", "fields" in one column but cannot find a reason why that happens.

Must I import an exact & complete Tbird CSV? Must column names match exactly in name and in order? May Tbird skip blank/empty columns where my data does not include info that Tbird wants?

After all of the above, my contact data is in numerous forms that I convert somehow that I can then obtain a CSV. I receive the data as email or shared document or some scanned to PDF or JPG. THANK YOU, LINUX for piped command chains and scripted work flow.

Thank You in Advance, ~~~0;-} Dan

I want to use my Tbird address books as my contact data "warehouse." Can someone help me? Tbird has a set of preferred data attributes for IMPORT into address books. I find articles and postings that discuss (1) create & open an addressbook; (2) browse & select the CSV data file; etc. Where do I find detailed preparation for a CSV that Tbird will digest? On import, Tbird tries to match file column with Tbird preferred columns. This never works for me. I routinely see whole records with multiple "quoted", "fields" in one column but cannot find a reason why that happens. Must I import an exact & complete Tbird CSV? Must column names match exactly in name and in order? May Tbird skip blank/empty columns where my data does not include info that Tbird wants? After all of the above, my contact data is in numerous forms that I convert somehow that I can then obtain a CSV. I receive the data as email or shared document or some scanned to PDF or JPG. THANK YOU, LINUX for piped command chains and scripted work flow. Thank You in Advance, ~~~0;-} Dan

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The simplest way I have found to match a csv with Thunderbird's preferences is this: - with at least one email address in the addressbook, export a csv from thunderbird. - this is now your template. View it in a spreadsheet program and compare to the csv file that you want to import. - adjust the columns in your csv to mirror the columns in the exported csv. - now the import should go smoothly.