Importing Standards

Importing standards into your Planbook file is the quickest and easiest way to make a large number of standards available. You do need to carefully set up the spreadsheet file in order to ensure that the standards are imported properly.

The simplest spreadsheet you can set up is a two column sheet containing the standard short name and detail. This spreadsheet would look like:

1Standard 1 Full TextStandard 1 Short Name
2Standard 2 Full TextStandard 2 Short Name
3Standard 3 Full TextStandard 3 Short Name

Note that there are no headings on the table columns. Importing this spreadsheet (once exported as a .CSV file) would result in three new standards appearing in your file and ready for use.

Importing standards in a nested manner (creating standards as sub-standards of other standards) is a bit more complicated. Here's an example .xls file that will import and create a number of standards and sub-standards (Also in PDF). This operation requires a four column spreadsheet that is set up as follows

1Standard 1 Full TextStandard 1 Short Name
2Standard 1 Full TextStandard 1 Short NameSub Standard 1 Full TextSub Standard 1 Short Name
3Standard 1 Full TextStandard 1 Short NameSub Standard 2 Full TextSub Standard 2 Short Name
4Standard 3 Full TextStandard 3 Short Name
2Standard 3 Full TextStandard 3 Short NameSub Standard A Full TextSub Standard A Short Name
2Standard 3 Full TextStandard 3 Short NameSub Standard B Full TextSub Standard B Short Name

Notice that standards in the first two columns may be repeated. If the standard defined in the first two columns already exists in the file, a standard using the 3rd and 4th columns will created as a sub standard of the standard defined in columns 1 and 2. This operation can be repeated to create multiply nested standards

A Note About The .CSV File

Planbook can only import .CSV files (comma-separated-value files). Normally, Microsoft Excel, Apple's Numbers and Google Docs save in a proprietary, non-reusable format. All three applications allow you to either save-as or export your spreadsheet into the needed format.

In Microsoft Excel, after creating your spreadsheet please do a "Save As" operation and select "CSV" as the format. Once you do this CSV save, you will need to open the file in Apple's TextEdit Application (in your Applications folder) and do a "Save As" again, selecting UTF-8 as the encoding for the file

In Apple's Numbers application, after creating your spreadsheet, choose the File-->Export menu item. Choose a name, ensure that the CSV option is selected as well as the UTF-8 (Unicode) encoding. This will create a file that can be imported directly into a Planbook file.

In Google Docs, you can choose the File-->Download As-->CSV menu item to export your file as a CSV file. Once downloaded, open the file in Apple's Text Edit application and do a "Save As", selecting UTF-8 as the encoding for the file and ensuring that the extension on the file is .csv