If you are using MS Excel to work the initial spreadsheet, you will find that it forces unwanted formatting - even if you choose to save the file as a tab-delimited text file.

Annoyingly, when Excel sees " in the data, it assumes you also want to delimit text using inverted commas, and it will pepper the resultant txt file with inverted comma symbols. Sometimes, it places these after a tab space resulting in the next field being delimited by inverted commas.

Easy Populate gets confused with this. However, it CAN tolerate inverted commas within the field contents - so your 12" should be OK.

So... how does one circumvent excel's tendency to pepper the TXT file with " . ?

I have found a possible solution - but you will need a program like CRIMSON EDITOR or EMERALD EDITOR (both are free text editors - use Google to find the download).

Install Emerald Editor, open it at an empty file... then...

1. In your excel spreadsheet, HIGHLIGHT the range of cells containing your data (ie: all the columns across and all the rows down THAT CONTAIN DATA. (Do not highlight the entire sheet.

2. COPY that highlighted block.

3. Go over to Enmerald editor, and use CTRL+V (paste) the block.

4. It should behave nicely, and paste EXACTLY the data, and NOT put unwanted " marks directly ahead of, or behind TAB spaces.

5. SAVE the emerald editor file as your xxxxxxxxx.txt file.

6. Load that through easy Populate.

(You could delete ALL product data in your store - to remove duplicates - by grabbing a EP dump of your current store data, then using v_status = 9, then importing that into EP. Be careful here... you MUST backup your images folder first. I usually rename my images folder to images_bak, and then create a new, empty images folder. If you fail to do this, a v_status=9 will delete all your images too. Then, with a cleaned out product database, load your new file created via Emerald Editor, into your store.)

One other downside of this is that all your products will assume new ID's, so if you have attributes, you may lose the associations. Also, historical order data may be lost too, as the original id will be gone, and the product that owned it will have a new id. I have worked around this too, by getting EP to export the product ID field contents, then making sure to start the database's increment at 0 again - (requires phpMyAdmin knowledge).