Importing spreadsheet data

Adding a CSV Source to your Silva

1. Preparation

Before adding data from a spreadsheet such as Microsoft Excel you must first save your data as a CSV file (Comma Separated Values). This is a text format where the values in the cells of your spreadsheet are separated by commas.  

Fig. 1. Importing csv text example

2. Importing a CSV source

Go to the Silva Management area and add a CSV Source via the select list.

Note: if you do not see Silva CSV Source in the list ask your Manager to install the Silva External Sources product into the Products area of Zope. (Fig.2.)

Fig. 2. Silva CSV Source option in select list

3. Fill in the id and title and the "character coding" for your CSV file. (Fig. 3)  If you're not sure what the coding is, leave it as the default 'latin1'. If your text has accented characters and they don't display correctly in “public preview...”, try one of the other encodings. If your encoding doesn't appear in the select list – say your content is in Chinese – you can type it into the designation field. Then click save. 

If you click on save and edit you will be taken to an area with four more forms.  This is useful because you can give a description of your uploaded data or you can upload here if the data needs updating or if you  simply wish to check the uploaded code.

Congratulations, you now have imported your spreadsheet data into the contents screen.

Fig. 3.  Silva CSV Source form

4.  Placing a CSV source in your document

Depending on which editor your are using, the procedure will be different.

4a. Adding a CSV source with the Kupu editor

Go to the document and open the Kupu editor.
Click the cursor in the document where you would like the data to appear.
In the toolbox located on the right of the screen, scroll to the external source tool, select the name of the external source you would like to add from the dropdown list (Fig. 4.) There may only be one choice, depending on how may sources your site has uploaded.

Fig. 4.  External source tool in kupu

Click add external source.
You will now be prompted with more options, you could choose a table style from the drop down list, or enter a batch size to split up a large file into a number of pages.  For instance if you wanted 20 items per page you would put 25 in the batch size form.
A yellow bar indicated the position of the data will appear at the point in the document where you placed the external source.  Actual data is shown only in the preview screens and in the published documents.

4b. Adding a CSV source with the the Forms editor

In the Silva management area an author can now access this asset and place it inside a document.  Go to the Forms Editor for your document and add an element to the document, and select an “external source” from the list. (Fig. 5.)

Fig. 5. Adding an external source in the forms editor

5. In the edit form, select the asset from the drop down list and click update. (Fig.6.)

Fig. 6. Click update to add the csv source

6. You are then given some more options. You can choose a table style from the drop down list. Also you can enter the batch size. The batch size enables you to split up a large file into a number of pages. If you want 25 items per page you would put 25 in the batch size form. (Fig. 7.)

Fig.  7.  Options for adding an external source

7. To view the data click on public preview....  A yellow bar indicating the position of the data will appear at the point in the document where you placed the CSV source.  Actual data is shown only in the preview screens and in the published documents.

8. Submit the document for publishing.

CSV Source Updating

Changes to the data of the CSVSource are done by uploading a new set of data or editing the raw data via the edit screen.  A re-publication of the document is not necessary.

The table layout is the standard table layout Silva uses for its tables.  But there is, as always, the possibility to modify the page template which creates the html table.