Special Symbols in Squarespace CSV Import

Wondering if there's a correct way to import products that have descriptions with special symbols?

For example, when importing products that have 123ºC in their description the product on the page will be 123�C. The same goes for other symbols such as ™

This sounds like a character set issue. I just did a test where I added the ™ character to title and description and imported with no issue. The character set for the file was UTF-8.

To potentially fix the issue you would need to use tools that can convert between character sets.

Alternately you might be able to re-export the file but select the UTF-8 character encoding for the output.

45 minutes ago, creedon said:

This sounds like a character set issue. I just did a test where I added the ™ character to title and description and imported with no issue. The character set for the file was UTF-8.

To potentially fix the issue you would need to use tools that can convert between character sets.

Alternately you might be able to re-export the file but select the UTF-8 character encoding for the output.

@creedon sorry just to clarify what you mean

are these the steps I should follow?

• export Squarespace CSV
• open csv in excel 
• edit data
• resave as CSV UTF-8 (as opposed to just regular csv that it comes as) before importing
• import

wonder why it's not just UTF-8 by default 🫠

I'm not currently using Excel so I can't give you specifics on that. For my test I just used a CSV exported from Google Sheets and opened in my code editor to add the ™ character, which by default opened the file with a UTF-8 charset. I then imported the file into SS with no issues. When I went back into my code editor and changed charset to Windows Latin-1 I saw the diamond question mark when importing the file into SS.

Is your CSV file originally exported from a Squarespace site or some other source? If the later then I'd be checking if that other source has options for choosing the character set before you export.

Just now, creedon said:

I'm not currently using Excel so I can't give you specifics on that. For my test I just used a CSV exported from Google Sheets and opened in my code editor to add the ™ character, which by default opened the file with a UTF-8 charset. I then imported the file into SS with no issues. When I went back into my code editor and changed charset to Windows Latin-1 I saw the diamond question mark when importing the file into SS.

Is your CSV file originally exported from a Squarespace site or some other source? If the later then I'd be checking if that other source has options for choosing the character set before you export.

@creedon they're from various suppliers so we have to deal with the format they come in. I'll try saving the doc from excel as CSV UTF-8 and see if that makes a difference first

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they're from various suppliers so we have to deal with the format they come in.

Got ya.

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I'll try saving the doc from excel as CSV UTF-8 and see if that makes a difference first

Can't hurt!

Let us know how it goes.

17 minutes ago, creedon said:

Got ya.

Can't hurt!

Let us know how it goes.

@creedon trying to import the CSV UTF-8 results in squarespace saying there's no product ID column (I'm updating existing products to fix these UTF-8 issues) so failed to import 🤔

Have you made modifications to the products that were originally imported? If not, I suggest deleting those from your store and start fresh with your UTF-8 version of the CSV.

If you've made modifications that you can't live without then you are into exporting from Squarespace, trying the UTF-8 export from Excel. But at this point you are adding layers of potential problems on top of each other making corrections that more difficult. Best to start fresh to keep the number of variables down.

40 minutes ago, creedon said:

Have you made modifications to the products that were originally imported? If not, I suggest deleting those from your store and start fresh with your UTF-8 version of the CSV.

If you've made modifications that you can't live without then you are into exporting from Squarespace, trying the UTF-8 export from Excel. But at this point you are adding layers of potential problems on top of each other making corrections that more difficult. Best to start fresh to keep the number of variables down.

@creedon quite a few of these products have the "additional info" section filled out which has to be done on the back end per product instead of using a spreadsheet for some reason so I don't think we would want to start again 🤔

Then you are left with exporting your products from Squarespace, editing them, and reimporting.

I have no idea what this round trip through various systems will do.

I can suggest that you export only one product that is having the issue that way you can test the process and find out what you are up against.

Further queries about this.

it seems that from the .csv export the additional info is not there and I cannot add it to new products. does this mean that we have to do individually?

another thing: regarding the description. when I export my current list in the .csv format, how do i add description for a product to include a new line? all formating was lost and I have now 1 big paragraph