Hi,

I think it's limited in the datasource you use. Try it by opening and see how long it is. What is the DataSource you are using?

Thanks,

Richard

the datasource is an excel spreadsheet.

i had one large excel spreadsheet which had news articles over several years. i split the spreadsheet into 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008 articles - 4 seperate spreadsheets.

i have successfully imported 2011, 2010, 2009 with all media and full text.

the 2008 spreadsheet contains all the imformation, but only 256 characters of the 'body text' column are imported.

Serious? Is it possible to send me a sample (richard[at]soetemansoftware[dot]nl) Then I will have a look.

Thanks,

Richard

will do shortly. I have just re-imported the 2011 one again - no problem.

i tried the 2008 one - again truncated at 256 chars.

weird!?!

Ok in that case, check the Field type in excel. My guess is that 2011 is set to text and the 2008 version to general?

changed and double-checked field types in excel. still truncating. i have sent the files across - if you have a moment to look, i would be grateful.

hi [again]

i have finally managed to sort this out, but have not got a 'solution' or even an explanation for the problem.

i tried all sorts of things including:

• removing all the saved import and files in the data/import folder - no luck.
• changing the format of the column - no luck
• renaming the column - no luck
• saving as earlier excel - no luck
• many others - no luck

Finally, i copied the column and pasted in [data only] into a new column - BINGO!! worked exactly as it should. why oh why did i not try this 2 hours ago???

as i say, not a solution per se, but should anyone else experience this, it might help.

anyone with an actual reasoned cause/solution - let us know

thanks for you quick help richard

Hi Fergus,

Just replied you. Something weird is with the column indeed when I viewed the pure text form it only showed around 260 characters the 2011 sheet is correct so I don't know what is causing the issue but great that the copy thing worked for you. Maybe another weird setting messed things up in Excel?

Again glad you found a solution / workaround

Cheers,

Richard

Richard,

I am having this exact same issue when importing from Excel.  I import one spreadsheet and it imports all characters, I import another with identical cell properties and it cuts off after 255 characters.

Both sheets are XLSX format with cell formatting set to "General."  Both Umbraco fields are set to "Simple Editor" data type.  I am running 4.7 on .NET 4.

Would you like me to send you my data as well?  I think I can work around this by 1st converting to XML then importing, but I would really like to find a solution, as skipping this step is one of the main reasons I upgraded to 2.0.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Hi Jeff,

Excel has some weird behaviour when it comes to text I guess. For now I think it's best to do the same as Fergus did in the above comment:

"Finally, i copied the column and pasted in [data only] into a new column - BINGO!! worked exactly as it should. why oh why did i not try this 2 hours ago???"

Then it shoudl be fixed. Or use the sheet that is importing correctly as a template for all other sheets you want to import (if the structure is the same of course). It is something weird (propably a text formatting option)in Excel that is causing this behaviour and I don't know exactly what it is at this moment. So for now the work around with copy pasting to another column is the best I guess.

You can always send me the sheet so I can use it to investigate this further.

Thanks,

Richard

Thanks Richard.  Fergus' solution is the 1st thing I tried, but that did not work for me.  After much monkeying around I got it by using the CLEAN function in excel, then copy that column's data and pasting as values into another column.  Then saving as XLS and using SoftSilver Transformer to convert to XML.

I think it may have to do with the hidden characters excel uses for formatting (possibly chars 010 and 009) and how they translate when exporting to other formats.  I am looking more into this and will let you know if I find anything useful.

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

Yes please do because I'm really frustrated that this Excel field is giving so much trouble. I will try to contact the team that wrote the Data provider for Excel and try to find a solution also.

Thanks,

Richard

Hi Jeff,

Yes please do because I'm really frustrated that this Excel field is giving so much trouble. I will try to contact the team that wrote the Data provider for Excel and try to find a solution also.

Thanks,

Richard

is working on a reply...