# Is there a way to import tags from an Excel file?

**URL:** <https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-import-tags-from-an-excel-file/15514>\
**Category:** Ignition\
**Tags:** ignition79\
**Created:** [September 29, 2017, 5:12pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-import-tags-from-an-excel-file/15514 "2017-09-29T17:12:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bprice](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/bprice/32/83520_2.png) [@bprice](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/bprice)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 5:12pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-import-tags-from-an-excel-file/15514/1 "2017-09-29T17:12:20Z")

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I am currently working on a recipe project, where a customer is wanting to see who makes changes to a recipe, which is easy to do with the recipe software in Ignition with a Recipe Editor and a ChangeLog. The customer has 9 different recipes with almost a hundred tags, and each tag value is different from the other recipes. Is there a way to import the tags/values from an excel file?

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**Author:** ![MMaynard](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/mmaynard/32/3366_2.png) [@MMaynard](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/MMaynard)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 5:43pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-import-tags-from-an-excel-file/15514/2 "2017-09-29T17:43:23Z")

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You would need to be familiar with VBScript and writing to files.  
We use Excel to import tag dumps from wonderware, we parse the sheets and fill in the variables for the XML tag import.

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**Author:** ![Kyle\_Chase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9de0a6/32.png) [@Kyle\_Chase](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Kyle_Chase)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2017, 9:49pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-import-tags-from-an-excel-file/15514/3 "2017-09-29T21:49:14Z")

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Yes, there is a way. You would need to use the Apache POI libraries, and read the file in through Python. Do you have an example file?

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**Author:** ![Sanderd17](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/sanderd17/32/8735_2.png) [@Sanderd17](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/Sanderd17)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2017, 9:12am UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-import-tags-from-an-excel-file/15514/4 "2017-10-02T09:12:40Z")

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Note that you can also import CSV directly, and Excel can export to CSV. You’ll just have to figure out how to transform your Excel to the right columns and what delimitors to use.

You can get an example CSV by exporting existing tags and choosing the \*.csv export extension (default is \*.xml).

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**Author:** ![sparky.chauvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecc23a/32.png) [@sparky.chauvin](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/sparky.chauvin)\
**Post date:** [October 3, 2017, 6:20pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-import-tags-from-an-excel-file/15514/5 "2017-10-03T18:20:19Z")

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.CSV is nice, but doesn’t support alarm parameters.

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**Author:** ![nkienzle](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/inductiveautomation/user_avatar/forum.inductiveautomation.com/nkienzle/32/4902_2.png) [@nkienzle](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/u/nkienzle)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2017, 9:28pm UTC](https://forum.inductiveautomation.com/t/is-there-a-way-to-import-tags-from-an-excel-file/15514/6 "2017-10-05T21:28:42Z")

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Exactly. That’s what is a pain to set up manually.