Import & Export

Overview

Artists and artworks each have their own Import & Export screen:

• Artists → Import & Export
• Artworks → Import & Export

Use them to:

• Import a spreadsheet of artists or artworks to add a collection at once, or to update dates, mediums, credit lines and "On View" across many artworks.
• Export them as a spreadsheet (CSV) to edit or keep, or as a JSON file to copy them to another Dirigible site.

You can also get there from the Import and Export buttons beside Add New Artist and Add New Artwork at the top of each list.

You need an Editor or Administrator account, and permission to upload files.

A JSON export holds artists and artworks together. Export from Artworks → Import & Export and import that one file on the other site: the artists come in first, so each artwork finds its artist, even one the same file adds.

With spreadsheets, import artists first, then artworks. A spreadsheet holds one kind: the import reads it as artists or artworks from its columns, and the Export tab asks which one you want. An artwork's Artist columns point to artists already on the site. An artist that isn't there yet is left out of the artwork, and the preview tells you.

Export

1. Go to Artists → Import & Export or Artworks → Import & Export and stay on the Export tab.
2. Choose Spreadsheet (CSV) to open the file in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets, or JSON to import it on another Dirigible site.
3. Turn on Include drafts and private ones if you want those too. Off, the file holds only what visitors can see.
4. Select Download export file.

Import a spreadsheet

The quickest start is Download a blank spreadsheet on the Export tab: it has every column with the right header. Or export what you have, edit it, and import it back.

1. Fill in one row per artist or artwork. Only the Name (artists) or Title (artworks) is required. Leave out any column you don't need.
2. Save it as CSV (in Excel: File → Save As → CSV UTF-8).
3. Go to the Import tab and drop the file on the box, or select Choose a file.
4. Nothing changes yet. You see every row with what will happen to it:
   • New: it isn't on this site, so it's added.
   • Update: it's already here and the row has changes. The list names them (Date, Medium, On View…).
   • Skip (No changes): it's already here and nothing differs.
   • Error: the row can't be imported, for example because its title is empty.
5. Untick any row you don't want brought in.
6. Choose what happens to ones already on the site: Update it from the file, or Leave it as it is (only add new ones). If the file has no Status column, choose whether new ones are added Published or as Drafts.
7. Select Import. Keep the page open until it finishes. If it's interrupted, open the page again and select Resume import: nothing is added twice.

Artist columns

Artwork columns

Column headers can be in any case, and a small typo is fine: the preview tells you how each header was read, and lists any it ignored (an accession number column, for example).

Images

Import doesn't download images. The Images and Photo columns pick images that are already in this site's Media Library, by their web address: the ones an export writes, or any size of them (photo-768x576.jpg picks photo.jpg).

An address that isn't in the Media Library leaves that column as it is for that row, and the preview says so. To bring images from somewhere else, upload them to Media → Add New first and use their new addresses, or add them in the editor after the import.

Updating ones already on the site

A row updates an existing artist when it has the same web address (Slug), then the same name.

A row updates an existing artwork when it has the same web address (Slug), then the same title and artist. Many works are called "Untitled", so a row titled Untitled with Mark Rothko as its artist only updates Mark Rothko's Untitled. The preview shows what each row matched and why.

Only what's in the spreadsheet changes. An empty cell never clears anything, so you can import a sheet with just titles and On View without touching anything else. To clear a field, edit that artwork.

Updated artists and artworks keep their status and web address.

Copy a collection to another Dirigible site

Export artists as JSON and import them on the other site, then do the same with artworks. A JSON file carries every field, categories and order, and links each artwork to its artists by their web address.

Images don't come along: the files hold the image addresses from the first site, which the second site's Media Library doesn't have. Upload the images there and add them in the editor.

What isn't imported or exported

• Image files: only the addresses of images already on the site (see Images).
• Anything placed with blocks: the Artists, Artwork Gallery and Artwork blocks on your pages stay as they are.

Undo an import

When an import finishes, select Undo this import. It deletes the artists or artworks that import added and the categories it added, and puts every one it updated back exactly as it was. Anything edited after the import is left as it is and listed, and a category that something else now uses is kept. Undo stays available for 7 days.

Undo artworks before artists: an artwork linked to an artist the undo removes loses that artist.