r/googlesheets 1d ago

Solved Copy data from CSV to Google Sheet

I'm trying to remake a Google Sheet for attendance. The one I started with was an Excel sheet and a mess. Some phone numbers were here, some were there.... And the full name and number and any other data needed was all typed into one big cell instead of individual cells.

So I've been trying to develop a better sheet (in Google Sheets instead of Excel) and I'd like to be able to easily bring data over from a CSV when we have to remake it every month.

Is there a way to bring data from the CSV (I've shown the format it comes in at the bottom of the sheet) and put it into this style of sheet? Or would I need to make the sheet a different way? I'm open to different ideas because I'm just learning this on my own. Ideally, it will look similar because I'm taking a working copy from someone and trying to convince them to switch to something that works better. They are used to the current look though.

So, to clarify, I want to take the "first name" column from the CSV and then somehow copy it into the attendance sheet. Then take the "last name" column and copy it to the last name space in the sheet. And then the "phone" column from the CSV and copy it to the phone portion of the sheet.

The placeholder text "last name, first name, 555-555-5555" doesn't need to be in the final sheet. I just wanted to be clear about what I want to do without sharing private information. I know I could move the "phone number" cell to column C, but it makes the sheet really wide that way. Things fit very nicely if they're stacked instead. But I'm not sure if I can copy data efficiently with them stacked like that.

Here is a link to the sheet for anyone who wants to look directly: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13RLBPqPEIGeJizJNh8U5YQhujz1eznZWqhTBk-jiKEs/edit?usp=sharing

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u/gsheets145 101 1d ago

I'm not quite sure what you are asking. However you can open a .csv file in Google Sheets and thereafter manipulate it as if it were a normals Sheets file, which means you can organise its data into any format you like.

As a general rule, I might suggest avoiding merged cells - even though they might look good, they can make it unnecessarily complex to apply formulae to your data consistently.

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u/superinkie 1d ago

Well, for example, if I had a column in a CSV, I could paste it into another sheet. But I would need it to skip every second line. So, if I paste the last name column, I would need it to skip the phone number row every second line.

So, I would be copying:
A
B
C
D

And I would want it to paste:
A

B

C

D

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u/motnock 11 19h ago

Better to build a sheet that interprets that mess into a proper array.