Import from Obsidian Portal into RealmWorks

[EightBitz]

Originally Posted by daplunk

So thinking this through.

I want to enter alot of data and need to understand the efficiency gains that can be made with this process.

lets say i have 300 of the same articles to enter. I'm thinking about items currently.

Article Name:
Type:
Group:
Rarity:
Description:
History:
Abilities/Effects:
Curse:

Would it be possible to put all the information into a spreadsheet and then manipulate the spreadsheet to output a text string in an XML format that could then be turned into an import file and loaded into RW?

I'm going to say it's not that straightforward. I mentioned in another post that once you add cover art in the export window, there's no way to delete it. So I tried to get rid of it manually.

1. I did a full export of my realm.
2. I deleted the encoded data for the cover art.
3. I left the XML structure in place. I only deleted the data.
4. I imported that back into RW.
5. Doing so produced an error.

I tried the exact same thing with the exact same realm, but without making any edits, and it imported fine. This indicates that it's not JUST the data. It seems as if there's a checksum value or something equivalent.

I haven't dug deeper. I submitted the error file to support, but haven't heard back yet.

[Parody]

Originally Posted by daplunk

You can Mail Merge into XML?

XML is just text with tags that give some meaning to programs and people that understand those tags. A mail merge template can have whatever text you want. Run the mail merge with an appropriate template, save as plain text, and you have a file containing XML.

Originally Posted by kbs666

I think he means he creates a bunch of mail merge documents and then runs a VBA script to extract the plain text from them.

I used VBA to automate and customize the process for non-technical volunteers that needed to do these same things, but you wouldn't need it for this.

[daplunk]

Genius... If I can figure this out productivity is going to more than double

[Farling]

Originally Posted by EightBitz

I tried the exact same thing with the exact same realm, but without making any edits, and it imported fine. This indicates that it's not JUST the data. It seems as if there's a checksum value or something equivalent.

I haven't dug deeper. I submitted the error file to support, but haven't heard back yet.

In your case, I think you said that you kept the XML tags for the cover picture, and merely deleted the data. It would probably work if you deleted the tags that surrounded the data as well.

[Farling]

Originally Posted by Parody

XML is just text with tags that give some meaning to programs and people that understand those tags. A mail merge template can have whatever text you want. Run the mail merge with an appropriate template, save as plain text, and you have a file containing XML.

There are web sites where you can upload a CSV and it will generate a simple XML file for you

[Vargr]

I admit it up front: I have no knowledge concerning XML.

But I just had a look at my excel and I can "save as" "other formats" "XML".

Would it be that simple?

I haven't tested (not sure what I should test).

This looked interesting: http://www.excel-easy.com/examples/xml.html

If I can find the time, I will have a closer look one of these weeks.

[kbs666]

It is almost that easy.

Excel will export a workbook as XML if you provide it an XSD schema, a XML stylesheet basically, then you map the parts of the sheet to the elements in the stylesheet. Then you can export to XML.

[Vargr]

Thank you for the explanation.

That seems like it could come in handy!

[daplunk]

So... is it possible to create a RW style sheet?

[Parody]

Originally Posted by Farling

There are web sites where you can upload a CSV and it will generate a simple XML file for you

Which isn't all that helpful if you don't know how to proceed from "table in CSV format" or "dataset tagged with XML" to "data ready for import into Realm Works" (or whatever the destination happens to be). You need a whole workflow. If you already know how to use Mail Merge then you can use that as part of the solution. If you already know how to write transformations then that can work for you too. If you don't know any way to get between them I doubt you'll care how you get there as long as you get from point A to point B with as little hassle as possible. (Probably by letting other people write it for you. :)

Excel can output spreadsheet data in XML formats using its schema or a mapping you provide, if either works better for you. That's only one part of the puzzle, though, just like a site that takes a table in CSV and spits out similar data in an XML format.