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Note
titleIf you are editing with Microsoft Excel, be sure to open the CSV in Unicode/UTF-8 encoding

By default, Microsoft Excel may not correctly open the CSV in Unicode/UTF-8 encoding. This means that special characters may be improperly displayed and also can be "corrupted" during re-import of the CSV.

You need to tell Excel this CSV is Unicode, by importing it as follows. (Please note these instructions are valid for MS Office 2007 and 2013. Other Office versions may vary)

  • First, open Excel (with an empty sheet/workbook open)
  • Select "Data" tab
  • Click "From Text" button (in the "External Data" section)
  • Select your CSV file
  • Wizard Step 1
    • Choose "Delimited" option
    • Start import at row: 1
    • In the "File origin" selectbox, select "65001 : Unicode (UTF-8)"
      • NOTE: these encoding options are sorted alphabetically, so "Unicode (UTF-8)" appears near the bottom of the list.
    • Click Next
  • Wizard Step 2
    • Select "Comma" as the only delimiter
    • Click Next
  • Wizard Step 3
    • Select "Text" as the "Column data format" (Unfortunately, this must be done for each column individually in Excel)
      • At a minimum, you MUST ensure all date columns (e.g. dc.date.issued) are treated as "Text" so that Excel doesn't autoconvert DSpace's YYYY-MM-DD format into MM/DD/YYYY
      • To avoid such autoconversion, it is safest to ensure each column is treated as "Text".  Unfortunately, this means selecting each column one-by-one and choosing "Text" as the "Column data format".
    • Click Finish
  • Choose whether to open CSV in the existing sheet or a new one

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If an action makes no change (for example, asking to withdraw an item that is already withdrawn) then, just like metadata that has not changed, this will be ignored.

Migrating Data or Exchanging data

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It is possible that you have data in one Dublin Core (DC) element and you wish to really have it in another. An example would be that your staff have input Library of Congress Subject Headings in the Subject field (dc.subject) instead of the LCSH field (dc.subject.lcsh). Follow these steps and your data is migrated upon import:

  1. Insert a new column. The first row should be the new metadata element. (We will refer to it as the TARGET)
  2. Select the column/rows of the data you wish to change. (We will refer to it as the SOURCE)
  3. Cut and paste this data into the new column (TARGET) you created in Step 1.
  4. Leave the column (SOURCE) you just cut and pasted from empty. Do not delete it.

Common Issues

Metadata values in CSV export seem to have duplicate columns
DSpace responds with "No changes were detected" when CSV is uploaded

Unfortunately, this response may be caused in many ways

  • It's possible the CSV was not saved properly after editing. Check that the edits are in the CSV, and that there were no backend errors in the DSpace logs (which would be an indication of an invalid or corrupted CSV file)
  • Depending on the version of DSpace, you may be encountering this known bug with processing linebreaks in CSV files: DS-3245
  • If you are setting a new embargo date in the CSV, ensure that the embargo lift date is a future date.  It's been reported that past dates may cause DSpace to ignore item changes.