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[mentalic]

Hello,
I am building a web application (with PHP) which involves importing table data (for example product, quantity, availability - 3 columns). From your experience which is the best format I would expect users to supply my application the data? The application is targeted at both experienced and non experienced users. I know that most of them might own Excel, however due to many different Excel formats I prefer a simplest file format (like .csv or .txt tab separated). What is your opinion and experiences about such a situation?

Thanks

[MaXsteri]

I realise this post is going back some way now, by no-one else replied it may still be of use:

Our web applications at work have a similar user base, namely non-technical users. In the past we have tried both CSV and tab delimited files to bring data out of Excel and into the web application. We have had our fair share of issues with both, and imports to the application are by and far the most frequent helpdesk issue. This is despite the file type requirements and limitations being well documented within the application, in my experience people just don't read the information.

Breaking down the helpdesk issues, we have far more calls relating to tab delimited imports than CSV. Common issues we have with tab delimited files are blank columns or rows that have mysteriously appeared in excel causing the import to fail, users using line returns instead of html line breaks and again it causing the import to fail, and so on.

Given the choice I would look in alternative methods of importing data, but out of the two I would choose CSV over tab delimited due to the lower number of issues we have had.

[ikarus]

What about Excel XML files?

We're using it to have costumers update their product listings (eCommerce). Worked fine so far. Then again, theres only a few people doing that ...