Documents ยท List preparation
Clean up a list before you use it
Paste a list from a spreadsheet or open a CSV, and say what each column is: reference, description, quantity, unit, price, width, height or length. Incomplete rows and repeated references are marked, and you decide what to do with them; sizes change between mm, cm, m and inches; two versions of a price list are compared by reference, with the % change of each price. Out it goes as CSV, as rows for a spreadsheet or to a budget. It is read in this browser: nothing is uploaded.
Free: up to 200 rows, with every export. Pro: larger files, import profiles and batches.
How a list is read
Paste rows copied from a spreadsheet, or open a .csv, .tsv or .txt file. The separator (tab, semicolon, comma or vertical bar) is found by looking for the one that gives every line the same number of cells; cells in quotes may hold that separator, quotes and line breaks. A file is read as UTF-8 when it is valid UTF-8, and otherwise as Windows-1252, which is what Excel writes on most Spanish and English computers; UTF-16 is read too. A spreadsheet saved as .xlsx is not text: save it as CSV, or copy and paste the rows. Rows with a different number of cells, and quotes that never close, are reported before anything is used.
Codes stay codes
Every cell stays as it was written until you give its column a number role. A reference like 00125 keeps its zeros, and a description is never turned into a number.
1.250: one thousand two hundred and fifty, or one and a quarter?
In Spanish it is the first; in English, the second. When the other cells of a column settle it (12,5 or 1.234,56 in the same column), that is what is used. When nothing in the column settles it, the tool asks you once for that column, and does not guess from the language of your browser.
Incomplete rows and duplicates
A row is incomplete when a column you assigned is empty or cannot be read in it, or a size or quantity is not above zero; the original text of an unreadable cell is kept so you can see what it said. Rows with the same reference (or, with no reference column, the same description and sizes) are marked as repeated. Nothing is merged by itself: you keep them all, keep one, or add up their quantities.
Comparing two versions of a price list
Open the other version and the rows are matched by reference: what was added, what was removed, which prices changed and by what percentage, and which descriptions or units changed. A reference repeated inside one of the lists cannot be matched for certain, so it is listed apart and not compared.
What comes out
A CSV with the separator of the page's language (comma in English, semicolon in Spanish), rows copied for pasting into a spreadsheet, and lines sent to a budget. A cell that a spreadsheet could run as a formula (starting with =, +, - or @) is written with an apostrophe in front; a plain negative number is left as a number.
Import profiles and batches
A profile remembers how one supplier's list is read: which column is which (by its heading, so a column that moved still matches), the separator, the heading row, the decimal separator of each number column and the unit of the sizes. When a list with those headings arrives, the profile is proposed and applies with one click; what it answers is shown, and you can change it. A batch reads several files or pasted lists at once with one profile and shows, for each one, its rows, its problems and any question it still has; a list with an open question is not exported until you answer it. Then they go out in one CSV, or one CSV per list.
What is free
Lists of up to 200 rows, with every export and the comparison. Pro works with larger files, and adds import profiles and batches.