WebweaverD:

Looks like you jumped in with both feet before checking how cold the water was! LOL!

Yes, you MUST use the BASIC attribute import FIRST. This is how you CREATE the attachment of an attribute set to a product. If your product has multiple attribute set (color, size, etc) then you will have a line for that product for each attribute set.

If you are having problems with OpenOffice, try to update your Java. I heard other people having issue with OO.
IMPORTANT: You CAN work in Excel, but you need to use OO to export your CSV. Other forms MAY work, but I can offer no guarantees.

Yes, the error reporting side of the Attribute import code is not fully mature.

Your normal work flow to attach attributes is:

1) create your BASIC import (respect file naming conventions!): this will attach your attribute names/values to your product id.

2) after you import your BASIC attribute file, EXPORT your DETAILED attribute file. The DETAIL file is one-to-one record based. So you do not use the DETAILED report to create new attributes, just set the micro-data on how that attributes works.

3) import your DETAILED file to update those particular settings.

hope this clarifies some things.
-chadd