Rather than recreating data you’ve already stored elsewhere, Tap Forms Pro allows importing via Tap Forms Pro Archives (.tfparc), Tap Forms 5 Archives (.tfarc), Form Templates (.tff), Records (.csv and .xlsx), Bento Templates (.bentoTemplate), or direct from Apple Contacts. Found under the File menu, importing can help you quickly develop your forms, add hard-to-copy data, and streamline your workflow.
In this topic, we’ll cover how to import records into your database documents. By importing one of these file types, Tap Forms can understand the data within the file and convert them into records with field data. Utilizing the top row of your file as the field types, Tap Forms can seamlessly integrate your fields into a new form.
Before you import your files, it’s important to take proper inventory. First, make sure that if you’re using a CSV file, it has either a .csv, .txt, .mer, or .tsv file extension. Then, check that you know the column delimiter settings. You can use a simple text editor application to find out the delimiter by checking to see what character separates values. It’s normally a comma, but can also be a semi-colon, tab character, or a pipe character.
If you’re importing a XLSX file, you don’t have to worry about comma delimiters, line endings, or file encodings – just have your data in the first data sheet and the first row with your field names in it.
Once you’re ready to go, click File > Import > Records. To start, choose the file you’d like to import into Tap Forms; if your records have attachments or photos, you can select those as well. Next, it’s time to select specific settings for your file.
Choose a folder of photos
This option lets you select a folder that contains photo files that you want to import into your form along with your records. If your import file has a Photo field in it with the filenames of your photos, Tap Forms will import those photos along with the records from the import file.
Choose a folder of attachments
The same as the Photo folder option, this option lets you select a folder that contains any kind of files that you want to import into your form along with your records. If your import file has a File Attachment field in it with the filenames of your attachments, Tap Forms will import those files along with the records from the import file.
File Encoding
Perhaps the most important of these settings is under “File encoding”. Essentially, selecting the right encoding format will ensure that the characters within the file are viewable and understood by Tap Forms. It’s unlikely that you’ll have problems with this, and the default of Unicode (UTF-8) will likely suit your needs. However, if you write in a language with specific characters, you might have to tinker with these settings. If you’re importing from Windows, then Windows Latin 1 may be what you need to use.
Column Delimiter
The Column Delimiter setting tells Tap Forms Pro what character is used to delimit (or separate) the values in your CSV file. Generally it’s a comma, but can also be a semi-colon, tab, or pipe character. For example “One, Two, Three” is comma delimited. “One; Two; Three” is semi-colon delimited, and so on.
Date and Time Formats
The easiest way to know which Date Format to use is to look at the data inside the CSV file and see what format your dates look like they’re in. But be careful to get it right otherwise you’ll either get no dates imported or the date values will be wrong. For example, Is 1/03/2025 January 3, 2025? Or is it March 1st, 2025? So it could be dd/MM/yyyy or MM/dd/yyyy. You would need to scan your data to see if you have any dates with double digit day or month numbers in them and then you’ll know what date format to use. If your date values have times in them, then you’ll need to specify the time format too. Tap Forms will add a space character between the date and time formats. So take that into account.
Select a Form
If you’re importing records into a form you’ve already created in Tap Forms, you can use the dropdown menu to identify and select this form. You can also create a new form with a title here.
Assign Field Types
Finally, it’s time to assign field types to your records. If you want your records to be outfitted with unique field types (check boxes, ratings, etc.), this is the place to do that. This certainly comes in handy when importing records from another Tap Forms document, as you’ll already know what field type you’re looking for.
Start at line
This function lets you tell Tap Forms which line in your import file to use for the field names. It’s possible your file has some other, non-field name lines before the line that contains the field names. Use this function to tell Tap Forms which line in the import file has the field names.
CSV file navigator and “Add Missing Fields to Form”
Along the bottom of the window are a pair of arrows.
These allow you to quickly switch between records in the CSV or XLSX file so you can see a preview of the data you’re going to import.
You’ll also see a check box for “Add missing fields to form”. By ticking this box, any fields that you have in your file that aren’t currently in the form will be added – this is especially important when starting a new form from scratch.
Presets
You can save all the settings you’ve selected into a preset which you can re-select whenever you need to import another file. It’s especially useful if you have to import regularly. You can create as many presets as you like giving them unique names.
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