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What Happened To Software Documentation?

Argh. Frustrating hour trying to upload a few hundred contacts from Excel to Google Contacts. Not from another contact app, but from Excel.

Basically the idea is, make a CSV file and import to Google Contacts. But what headers and fields will Google recognize? The biggest internet company in the world can't be bothered to provide any official guidance, at least none that you can find via Google. Various individuals have put up tutorials, made sample CSV files available, posted YouTube videos. So you have search those out, figure how knows what they are talking about, follow the instructions, and find out that it doesn't work.

What happened to a software company providing clear and adequate documentation for its product? When did companies decide that users should just figure it out for themselves and share solutions that might or might not work?

Have had the same complaint with Parallels and with a remarkable number of specialist, very expensive financial applications. For the latter, I'm convinced the idea is that if they can force you to contact support all the time, they can have more opportunities to upsell you a new module.

Every time I've written software to read a CSV I grab the file, then ask user if it contains column headers. If so, I display column headers and ask user to map to hte columns I use. If not, I display first row of data and ask for map.

Code:

sj@darkstar ~ $ man google contacts

No manual entry for google

No manual entry for contacts

sj@darkstar ~ $

Looks like you are SOL

Looks like google will either import or export vcard, outlook csv or google csv. So I exported a contact from google to a google csv, just to see what the fields are - here they are, in order as exported:

Code:

Name

Given Name

Additional Name

Family Name

Yomi Name

Given Name Yomi

Additional Name Yomi

Family Name Yomi

Name Prefix

Name Suffix

Initials

Nickname

Short Name

Maiden Name

Birthday

Gender

Location

Billing Information

Directory Server

Mileage

Occupation

Hobby

Sensitivity

Priority

Subject

Notes

Group Membership

E-mail 1 - Type

E-mail 1 - Value

Phone 1 - Type

Phone 1 - Value

Phone 2 - Type

Phone 2 - Value

Address 1 - Type

Address 1 - Formatted

Address 1 - Street

Address 1 - City

Address 1 - PO Box

Address 1 - Region

Address 1 - Postal Code

Address 1 - Country

Address 1 - Extended Address

Address 2 - Type

Address 2 - Formatted

Address 2 - Street

Address 2 - City

Address 2 - PO Box

Address 2 - Region

Address 2 - Postal Code

Address 2 - Country

Address 2 - Extended Address

Outlook csv fields:

Code:

First Name

Middle Name

Last Name

Title

Suffix

Initials

Web Page

Gender

Birthday

Anniversary

Location

Language

Internet Free Busy

Notes

E-mail Address

E-mail 2 Address

E-mail 3 Address

Primary Phone

Home Phone

Home Phone 2

Mobile Phone

Pager

Home Fax

Home Address

Home Street

Home Street 2

Home Street 3

Home Address PO Box

Home City

Home State

Home Postal Code

Home Country

Spouse

Children

Manager's Name

Assistant's Name

Referred By

Company Main Phone

Business Phone

Business Phone 2

Business Fax

Assistant's Phone

Company

Job Title

Department

Office Location

Organizational ID Number

Profession

Account

Business Address

Business Street

Business Street 2

Business Street 3

Business Address PO Box

Business City

Business State

Business Postal Code

Business Country

Other Phone

Other Fax

Other Address

Other Street

Other Street 2

Other Street 3

Other Address PO Box

Other City

Other State

Other Postal Code

Other Country

Callback

Car Phone

ISDN

Radio Phone

TTY/TDD Phone

Telex

User 1

User 2

User 3

User 4

Keywords

Mileage

Hobby

Billing Information

Directory Server

Sensitivity

Priority

Private

Categories

There are template out there. I recently went through this exercise..

Thank you very very much.

I have been trying to upload a CSV with just five columns: Name, E-mail 1 - Type, E-mail 1 - Value, Address 1 - Type, Address 1 - Street. Create in Google Docs, export to Google CSV, upload to Google Contacts, no worky. Contacts picks up Name and nothing else.