Exact File Name Tip

In order for spreadsheet ingest to work properly, you need to list the exact name of your files, including the file extension, in the binary_files column on your spreadsheet template. Below is a quick way to get the exact file names for your objects without having to type out every one individually using Excel.

  • Select the files you want in your file viewer (either on your computer or a hard drive). Right click (or press control + c) and copy all of the files. Then paste them into a new Excel document. Excel will display the file path for your objects.

  • Next, under the Data tab in Excel, find the Text to Columns option and click it.

  • In the pop up that appears, choose Delimited on the menu screen and click Next >.

  • On the next screen, choose and/or enter the delimiters that you need to isolate your file names. 

Delimiters means that when the program sees what you choose (a comma, slash, colon, etc.) in a line of text, it will move any data after anything you chose to a new row in the Excel document. For my example, I chose to break up the text in my column whenever there is a backslash and a comma. Your system may use a combination of delimiters depending on if you are using a Mac or Windows and where you copied your files from.

  • The final menu screen will give you a preview of your data. If everything looks good, hit Finish.

  • Now you can see that the file names have been separated into their own column. From here I can copy and paste the file names into my spreadsheet template.