# Importing from Excel or other spreadsheet files (e.g. LibreOffice Calc)

**URL:** <https://discourse.jabref.org/t/importing-from-excel-or-other-spreadsheet-files-e-g-libreoffice-calc/1539>\
**Category:** Features\
**Created:** [March 2, 2019, 10:01pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/importing-from-excel-or-other-spreadsheet-files-e-g-libreoffice-calc/1539 "2019-03-02T22:01:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![vmog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8e7dd6/32.png) [@vmog](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/vmog)\
**Post date:** [March 2, 2019, 10:01pm UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/importing-from-excel-or-other-spreadsheet-files-e-g-libreoffice-calc/1539/1 "2019-03-02T22:01:18Z")

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I would like to request a feature, which seems to be missing from this great software:

an ability to easily import bibliography files created in programs like Excel, LibreOffice Calc, and other similar ones, or at least, files in CSV format.

In the Help section, there is an option to create a custom import filter, and a “A simple example” of creating `SimpleCSVImporter.java`  
This is, probably, a good suggestion for people with basic coding skills – for the rest of us, it is a useless suggestion.

Many people have their bibliography lists in Excel or similar formats created years if not decades before JabRef appeared, and would love to migrate to it, but just don’t want spend countless hours re-creating their existing bibliography from the scratch in JabRef.

thanks  
vmog

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**Author:** ![Siedlerchr](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.jabref.org/siedlerchr/32/216_2.png) [@Siedlerchr](https://discourse.jabref.org/u/Siedlerchr)\
**Post date:** [March 3, 2019, 11:47am UTC](https://discourse.jabref.org/t/importing-from-excel-or-other-spreadsheet-files-e-g-libreoffice-calc/1539/2 "2019-03-03T11:47:34Z")

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Hi,

JabRef has no Importer for CSV, and the code in the example is outdated. However, it seem some other users managed to get it working again in this thread:  
The biggest problem is that there is no true CSV format standard for bibtex as it simply depends on the format of the csv, e.g. how you structured it.  
The easiest solution is to try manually/semi automatically use identifiers like DOI, Arxiv or PMID, ISBN etc. to get the bibtex data from it.

DOI would be the easiest option.  
See this discusion for an example: [Are there tools for importing from CSV to BibTeX? - TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange](https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/48532/are-there-tools-for-importing-from-csv-to-bibtex)

> [@Trouble compiling a custom import filter with JabRef 3.7](http://discourse.jabref.org/t/trouble-compiling-a-custom-import-filter-with-jabref-3-7/340/5):
>
> Hi Following the instructions at [http://help.jabref.org/en/CustomImports](http://help.jabref.org/en/CustomImports) for JabRef 4.1, I tried to compile custom importer filter on Windows 10 64bits and get following errors : SimpleCSVImporter.java:6: error: package org.jabref.logic.importer does not exist import org.jabref.logic.importer.Importer; ^ SimpleCSVImporter.java:7: error: package org.jabref.logic.importer does not exist import org.jabref.logic.importer.ParserResult; ^ SimpleCSVImporter.java:8: error: package org.jabref.l…