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# Contacts - How to Set Up the Template File for Editing in Microsoft Excel

In this article, you will learn how to correctly format the template file in Microsoft Excel, ensuring that the data is imported into the system without reading or formatting errors.

#### Follow the step-by-step instructions below:

The most efficient way to open CSV files with accents and special characters in Excel is by importing the data, rather than opening the file directly. Here's how to do it:

1. Open Microsoft Excel in a new blank workbook.
2. Go to the Data tab in the top menu.
3. In the Get & Transform Data group (or Get External Data in older versions), click From Text/CSV (or From Text in earlier versions).
4. Locate and select your CSV file.
5. In the preview window that will appear, find the File Origin or File Encoding option.
6. From the drop-down menu, select 65001: Unicode (UTF-8). This will ensure that accents and special characters are displayed correctly.
7. Check the Delimiter (usually comma or semicolon) and make sure the data is being distributed correctly into the columns.
8. Click Load (or Finish in older versions) to complete the import of the data into the spreadsheet.

{% embed url="<https://youtu.be/ZFQBDQnzTO4>" %}

{% hint style="danger" %}
Avoid leaving blank rows or columns so as not to cause errors when importing the data.
{% endhint %}

Done — this way, your template file will be properly configured in Excel, avoiding errors when importing the data into the system.<br>