Publishing your catalog

How to get a product catalog into TrueSpec — preparing your spreadsheet, mapping columns, fixing validation errors, and understanding draft vs. published.

Publishing to TrueSpec starts with a file you already have: the catalog spreadsheet your team maintains today. This guide walks through preparing that file, uploading it, and getting every product live.

Prepare the spreadsheet

TrueSpec accepts CSV and Excel (.xlsx) files. (Legacy .xls workbooks aren't supported — open the file in Excel and Save As .xlsx first. You can also import a PDF catalog or connect a Shopify or WooCommerce store; every path lands in the same review flow.)

A few rules make the difference between a clean import and a frustrating one:

• One row per orderable item. If a product comes in six colors and each color is what a customer actually orders, that's six rows — not one row with the colors packed into a single cell. Rows that share a model group automatically become variants of one product.
• Every row needs a SKU, and the SKU is permanent. The SKU is how TrueSpec recognizes a row on every future upload, and how your customers' systems reference the product. Send it exactly the same way every time — same prefix, same punctuation. A changed SKU looks like a brand-new product.
• Plain text in every cell. No HTML markup, no <br> tags, no embedded bullet lists. Formatting belongs to the storefronts that consume your data, not to the data itself.
• Include a category column. Categories drive which specification attributes apply to each product. Your account manager can help map your internal category names to TrueSpec's category list — or you can pick a single category for the whole file during review.
• Spec columns are welcome. Dimensions, finishes, pack quantities, materials — bring them all. Recognized columns map to typed, searchable attributes; everything else rides along as-is for your consumers.
• Image columns must contain web addresses (https://…), not file paths from your computer. TrueSpec downloads each image and re-hosts it on a CDN for your consumers. If your images aren't online anywhere, leave the column out — the bulk image uploader is the easier path (see Product images and documents).

Upload, map, review

Upload the file from Imports in the portal. TrueSpec proposes a mapping from your column headers to its fields — you confirm or adjust it once, and the mapping is remembered for your next upload. The review screen shows exactly what will be published, and lets you set a category for the whole file if your spreadsheet doesn't carry one.

Imports are all-or-nothing

Every row is validated before anything is written. If any row fails — a malformed number, an unknown category, a duplicate SKU within the file — nothing is published, and you get a row-by-row error report naming each problem. Fix the rows and upload the same file again.

This is a feature, not a hurdle: an import can never half-succeed, so there is no partial state to untangle. If your connection drops or the upload is interrupted mid-import, nothing is written at all — no orphan rows, no duplicates. And because re-uploading updates products in place (keyed on your SKUs), running the same file twice is always safe.

Draft vs. published

A product goes live (active) when it has a category and every attribute that category requires. A row missing a required attribute either fails the import with a clear message, or — via the API's opt-in — lands as a draft: stored, visible to you in the portal, but not served to consumers until the missing data arrives. Drafts promote to active automatically when a later upload fills the gap.

Never guess or fabricate a value to force a row live — a wrong spec in front of your customers is worse than a missing one.

After the first import

• Check the import report: it lists what was created, what was updated, and anything skipped.
• Add images and documents — see Product images and documents.
• Invite your customers, or hand your integration team the write API guide to automate future updates.

For how future uploads interact with hand edits and API pushes, read Updating your catalog — five minutes there prevents most surprises.

Questions this guide didn't answer? Get in touch — or browse the interactive API reference.