Importing & Exporting your Links

Exporting Your Links:

  1. Go to “Pretty Links” -> “Pro Import/Export”
  2. Click the “Export” Link
  3. Save the CSV file to your Computer or Open it in Excel (or OpenOffice.org)

Importing Your Links:

Importing is a bit trickier than Exporting … this is because you can actually do a lot of things depending on how your files are formatted. Here are some guidelines to follow when you are formatting your CSV files for import — then we'll go through the steps on how to import the CSV file:

  • Pretty Links knows what data is in each column of your CSV file by looking for specific headers to each column — they are self explanatory but must have these exact names: id, url, slug, name, description, category_id, redirect_type, track_me, use_prettybar, use_ultra_cloak, param_forwarding, param_struct, track_as_img, keywords … if a column in your CSV file doesn't have a first field that contains one of these labels then the entire column will be ignored (Pretty Links won't have any idea what to do with the data).
  • The “id” column is special … if a row in your CSV file contains a value for the id then Pretty Links will attempt to update a record in the database with that id — if the value is found then the link's data will be updated. If you are trying to create a pretty link from your CSV file then you should leave the id field blank. When Pretty Links sees a blank value in the id column (or the id column doesn't exist) then it will just create a pretty link from the data contained on that row.
  • When creating links the only required column is ‘url' (‘id' column is non existent or ‘id' value is blank) — if it's the only column set then pretty links will be created for the target urls using default options, names and generated slugs. When updating links, the only required column is the ‘id' column.
  • If you don't have a slug column or your slug is blank for a particular row then Pretty Links will automatically generate a slug for the Pretty Links.
  • I recommend that you Export your links and just edit the export file in Excel … when you're done with your edits make sure you save the file as CSV. If you're on a Mac like I am then there are several flavors of CSV file you can save as — make sure you select “CSV (Windows)” — this is the only one that will work.

Okay and here are the steps to import once you've got a valid CSV file:

  1. Go to “Pretty Links” -> “Pro Import/Export”
  2. Click the “Browse” button next to “Choose a file to import”
  3. Select the CSV file you just saved
  4. Click the “Import” Button

If you have any problems getting this working please contact me via the Customer Support Form.