Recently, one of our users asked us if there was a way to import post ideas in WordPress from a spreadsheet. We did a quick research, and well of course there is a way. In this article, we will show you how to import post ideas as draft in WordPress.
Many WordPress site owners plan their content strategy in spreadsheets containing post ideas as titles. This is specially common if you’re part of a larger organization or are working with a virtual assistant.
If you plan like we do, then chances are you have quite a few posts in your spreadsheet, and adding them manually will take a lot of time. Well, let’s take a look at how to easily import post ideas from CSV into WordPress.
Video Tutorial
If you don’t like the video or need more instructions, then continue reading.
First thing you need to do is install and activate the Really Simple CSV Importer plugin. Upon activation, simply go to Tools » Import and click on CSV.
On the next screen, you will be asked to upload a CSV file you want to import. But before you do that, first you need to format your spreadsheet properly, so that it can be imported.
The really simple CSV importer fetches post information based on columns in your spreadsheet. The first row in your spreadsheet must contain column names recognizable by the plugin. Some of the most commonly used column names are post_title, post_content, post_date, post_author, post_type and post_status. You can find the full list of column names on the plugin’s homepage.
You don’t need to have all the columns, and you don’t even need to have the columns in a particular order. Here is a screenshot of a sample spreadsheet that we will be importing.
The plugin also comes with its own sample CSV and ODT files, which are located in the plugin’s directory under sample folder. You can open these files in Microsoft Office, Google Docs, or LibreOffice Calc. Alternately, you can also open a CSV file in any plain text editor like Notepad.
The default post type is set to posts, and post status to draft. However, if you would like to change that, then you can do so by defining the post_status column.
Most spreadsheet software allow you to save your spreadsheet in CSV format. While downloading or saving your spreadsheet as CSV, make sure you use commas to separate columns, and make sure text delimiter is set to double quotes.
After you have converted your spreadsheet into CSV, you are now ready to import it into WordPress. Return back to CSV importer and click on choose file button to upload your CSV file. The plugin will then upload it and import posts into WordPress.
That’s all for now, we hope this article helped you import post ideas as draft in WordPress. If you’re part of a larger organization, then we highly recommend you check out Edit Flow to improve your editorial workflow. We have also compiled a list of 21 great plugins to manage a multi-author blog efficiently.
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Really Simple CSB has not been updated in over 3 years. It’s not deprecated but it is not compatible with any current version of WordPress. I attempted to get it to work in WP 4.8 and it said it imported the posts but I could not find them in the wp_post table.
Do you know if there is any way to schedule the publish date of posts through the CSV import? I know there are plugins to set up a routine schedule for publishing, but I can’t find an easy way to bulk edit the individual publish date for individual posts
Rob,
You can use Import/Update tool like WP Ultimate CSV Importer. It helps you schedule your future posts to be published in a routine basis. At the same time, you can also update the previously published data by updating your existing Post. You can update the published date either with Post ID, Title or slug.
Great tip, very helpful, especially for large imports! Thanks