Excel to My Favorites

[spacia]

I have rebuilt a machine and failed to backup My Favorites. I had
previously used a utility (sorry, forgot what it was) to export all my
Favs, all 1334, to a spreadsheet. The Excel spreadsheet has 3
columns, a title, a URL and the parent directory. These were straight
out of the My Favorites folder(s).

I would like to rebuild the IE My Favorites with the info in this
spreadsheet. Any ideas on how to export each line in the spreadsheet
to create a new My Favorites link.

Is there simple path staring my right in the face?

Chris

 

[Rich/rerat]

Chris,
You need to create a bookmark.html file so that you can import into IE.

If your Excel file looks similar to this:

Site address Site Name Favorites folder
http://finance.yahoo.com Finance yahoo.com
http://games.yahoo.com Games yahoo.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/ Groups yahoo.com

1. Open Word> New Mail Merge Document> Select Category/Directory merge type
depending what version of Word you have.
2. Select the data source that you want. I would sort/filter by parent
directory field/column. In addition I would try say 50 records at first, or
a small group based on the "parent folder" field, until you get the hang of
things, I know you mentioned that you had over 1300 entries to do.
3. Copy/Paste the following into your document:

<DT><A HREF="http://www.dellauction.com/" ADD_DATE="1194169752"
LAST_VISIT="1207709484" LAST_MODIFIED="1194248143">Dell Auction</A>

4. Then Replace http://www.dellauction.com/ by INSERTING the mergefield,
{Mergefield Site_address} inside the quotation (" ") marks.
5. Then Replace Dell Auction by INSERTING the mergefield, {Mergefield
Site_name} after the arrow (>) .

<DT><A HREF="{Mergefield Site_address}" ADD_DATE="1194169752"
LAST_VISIT="1207709484" LAST_MODIFIED="1194248143">{Mergefield
Site_name}</A>

6. Merge to New Document. Which should give you results similar to this:

<DT><A HREF=”http://finance.yahoo.com” ADD_DATE="1194169752"
LAST_VISIT="1207709484" LAST_MODIFIED="1194248143"> Finance</A>
<DT><A HREF=”http://games.yahoo.com” ADD_DATE="1194169752"
LAST_VISIT="1207709484" LAST_MODIFIED="1194248143"> Games</A>

7. Then Copy & Paste the following on the top of your Merged file

<!DOCTYPE NETSCAPE-Bookmark-file-1>
<!-- This is an automatically generated file.
It will be read and overwritten.
Do Not Edit! -->
<TITLE>Bookmarks</TITLE>
<H1>Bookmarks</H1>
<DL><p>

8. And then add the following line at the bottom of your merge file, after
the last favorite line.

</DL><p>

9. So it will look merged document will look like this:

<!DOCTYPE NETSCAPE-Bookmark-file-1>
<!-- This is an automatically generated file.
It will be read and overwritten.
Do Not Edit! -->
<TITLE>Bookmarks</TITLE>
<H1>Bookmarks</H1>
<DL><p>
<DT><A HREF=”http://finance.yahoo.com” ADD_DATE="1194169752"
LAST_VISIT="1207709484" LAST_MODIFIED="1194248143"> Finance</A>
<DT><A HREF=”http://games.yahoo.com” ADD_DATE="1194169752"
LAST_VISIT="1207709484" LAST_MODIFIED="1194248143"> Games</A>
</DL><p>

10. On the Merged Document> File> Save As> Choose Plain Text for file type,
but add the *.HTML extension to the filename, such as "Automobile.html"
(without quotes) . Save it to a folder on your Desktop, for easy access.
Then open the folder, and select the saved bookmark/html file, and randomly
check by clicking a few entries and see if they go to the appropriate
websites.
11. If Step#10 is successful, then Open IE> Files> Import/Export> Import
Favorites> If you haven't already, create individual folders in the
Favorites List. Select the folder that you want to add these favorites to>
Finish. Check if the sites are now listed and working in the folder.
12. Then repeat for the rest of the records, selecting a group at a time to
do.


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I have rebuilt a machine and failed to backup My Favorites. I had
previously used a utility (sorry, forgot what it was) to export all my
Favs, all 1334, to a spreadsheet. The Excel spreadsheet has 3
columns, a title, a URL and the parent directory. These were straight
out of the My Favorites folder(s).

I would like to rebuild the IE My Favorites with the info in this
spreadsheet. Any ideas on how to export each line in the spreadsheet
to create a new My Favorites link.

Is there simple path staring my right in the face?

Chris

 

[spacia]

Thank you for your post. I am getting so close I am no longer nervous
about resurrecting all my bookmarks. I have followed your
instructions through step 10 and I definitely see where you are going,
but not there, yet.


After the merge I am getting this:

<DT><A HREF="http://admission.stanford.edu/" ADD_DATE="1194169752"
LAST_VISIT="1207709484" LAST_MODIFIED="1194248143">Office of
Undergraduate Admission -- Stanford University</A>

Which I think looks good when compared to your merged example. I
follow your instructions through Step 9 and Step 10. Then to my
browser, the URL in general properties for the link "Office of
Undergraduate Admission -- Stanford University" is:

http://admission.stanford.edu/"%20ADD_DATE=

The ADD DATE is was passed all the way through the merge.

Any ideas? I will keep working it but if something jumps out I would
sure appreciate any assistance. Thanks, your suggestions have been
excellent.


Chris

 

[Rich/rerat]

Chris,
If you have your newsreader set to add (<) indent to replies and forwards,
extra (<'s) may have been added to some of the instructions. Go to the
following site and download the instructions in Plain Text, inside a *.zip
file.

http://tinyurl.com/3uhm9f

1. If the Double Quotes around the URL Mergefield were changed, you may run
into a problem, depending
on the default font used in your Word document.
2. When you save the merge list to plain text you should get an "encoding"
window that might pop up.
3. In the larger window look closely at the double quotes (" ") surrounding
the URL. Make sure they match the style around the Add_Date or Last_Visit
number.
4. If they don't, you will need to change them in NotePad.
For Example the double Quotes don't match around the URL to the ones around
the ADD_Date=number.
<DT><A HREF=”http://finance.yahoo.com” ADD_DATE="1194169752"
LAST_VISIT="1207709484" LAST_MODIFIED="1194248143"> Finance</A>

Highlight one double quote around the URL, Press CTRL+C. Then in
NotePad under Edit> Replace> Press CTRL+V and paste the double quotes (”) in
the Search for block> Then Type using Notepad's font a double quote (")>
Replace All. And you should see the change.

With the open Merged Document in NotePad, then select FILE> Save As> Name
the file
as something like "education_bookmark.html" (w/o quotes), in Text type or
All files. Then
check the bookmark file and see if the links work, if successful, then run
the import into IE.





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Thank you for your post. I am getting so close I am no longer nervous
about resurrecting all my bookmarks. I have followed your
instructions through step 10 and I definitely see where you are going,
but not there, yet.


After the merge I am getting this:

<DT><A HREF="http://admission.stanford.edu/" ADD_DATE="1194169752"
LAST_VISIT="1207709484" LAST_MODIFIED="1194248143">Office of
Undergraduate Admission -- Stanford University</A>

Which I think looks good when compared to your merged example. I
follow your instructions through Step 9 and Step 10. Then to my
browser, the URL in general properties for the link "Office of
Undergraduate Admission -- Stanford University" is:

http://admission.stanford.edu/"%20ADD_DATE=

The ADD DATE is was passed all the way through the merge.

Any ideas? I will keep working it but if something jumps out I would
sure appreciate any assistance. Thanks, your suggestions have been
excellent.


Chris

 

[spacia]

Again, thanks Rich. Now I have a list of working links. Your
speculation was right on. It was the double quotes and although I
really couldn't visually detect the difference between one quote and
another I replaced them globally and they are working as designed.

My small test group turned the corner and are now in a "test" folder
under MY Favorites.

Let me ask you one more question, if you will, just so that I am clear
going forward. Recreating specific folders under My Favorites appears
to me a much more manual process. I had maybe 30 folders. I'm
guessing those will be recreated one at a time and then during the
merge I will group URL\Sitenames for import to their original parent
folder. Sound right? Still not an overwhelming task.

I sure thank you for your assistance. I am always amazed and grateful
for the generosity and level of expertise of this community.

Cheers,
Chris

 

[Rich/rerat]

Chris,
After you do the merge you can paste the following aboved the Merged lines.
***Note the added last line with Add Folder Name in it.

<DT><H3 FOLDED ADD_DATE="1194231490">Add Folder Name</H3>
<DL><p>

That is where you will REPLACE the folder name that you want to use. No
quotes for the folder name.***

<!DOCTYPE NETSCAPE-Bookmark-file-1>
<!-- This is an automatically generated file.
It will be read and overwritten.
Do Not Edit! -->
<TITLE>Bookmarks</TITLE>
<H1>Bookmarks</H1>
<DL><p>
<DT><H3 FOLDED ADD_DATE="1194231490">Add Folder Name</H3>
<DL><p>

So it will look something like this:

<!DOCTYPE NETSCAPE-Bookmark-file-1>
<!-- This is an automatically generated file.
It will be read and overwritten.
Do Not Edit! -->
<TITLE>Bookmarks</TITLE>
<H1>Bookmarks</H1>
<DL><p>
<DT><H3 FOLDED ADD_DATE="1194231490">YAHOO SITES</H3>
<DL><p>
<DT><A HREF="http://finance.yahoo.com" ADD_DATE="1194169752"
LAST_VISIT="1207709484" LAST_MODIFIED="1194248143"> Finance</A>
<DT><A HREF="http://games.yahoo.com" ADD_DATE="1194169752"
LAST_VISIT="1207709484" LAST_MODIFIED="1194248143"> Games</A>
<DL><p>

Hope that helps.
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Again, thanks Rich. Now I have a list of working links. Your
speculation was right on. It was the double quotes and although I
really couldn't visually detect the difference between one quote and
another I replaced them globally and they are working as designed.

My small test group turned the corner and are now in a "test" folder
under MY Favorites.

Let me ask you one more question, if you will, just so that I am clear
going forward. Recreating specific folders under My Favorites appears
to me a much more manual process. I had maybe 30 folders. I'm
guessing those will be recreated one at a time and then during the
merge I will group URL\Sitenames for import to their original parent
folder. Sound right? Still not an overwhelming task.

I sure thank you for your assistance. I am always amazed and grateful
for the generosity and level of expertise of this community.

Cheers,
Chris