# Merge fields in album tags **URL:** \ **Category:** Support\ **Created:** [July 12, 2019, 11:57am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/merge-fields-in-album-tags/45875 "2019-07-12T11:57:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![prozakis](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/7feea3/32.png) [@prozakis](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/prozakis)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 11:57am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/merge-fields-in-album-tags/45875/1 "2019-07-12T11:57:42Z")
Hello everybody. I have a big list of albums that are properly tagged (filename, album, artist etc). My new car media player (Volvo XC40) cannot handle albums that are collections from various artists. The albums that come from one artist show ok on the music library. The albums that are collections with songs from many artists are separated. Each song as a separate album. It seems as if the media player sorts the database by both artist and album. The library is a mess. The only way to solve this is in "collection albums" is to have in the "artist" field one value like "Various artists". So I merged the **artist** and **title** in one field (Title) with this value " **%artist% | %title%**" to keep the information and be able to view the actual artist in the screen. Then I replaced the artist names to "Various artists". But, doing that it also replaced the actual value of the artist and now it shows "Various artists | Hotel california". Any ideas on how to import values to mp3tag from excel file, so that I can replace the values by a file not an online db. Thank you in advance for your help. Panos ---
**Author:** ![ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/ohrenkino/32/4843_2.png) [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 1:44pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/merge-fields-in-album-tags/45875/2 "2019-07-12T13:44:16Z")
> [@prozakis](#): > > Any ideas on how to import values to mp3tag from excel file See the function Convert\>Text file - Tag > **[Import Tags from Text Files – Mp3tag Documentation](https://docs.mp3tag.de/converters/import-tags-from-text-files/)** > > Documentation on Text File to Tag, a converter to import tags from text files. Mp3tag is the universal Tag Editor. ---
**Author:** ![prozakis](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/7feea3/32.png) [@prozakis](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/prozakis)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 2:36pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/merge-fields-in-album-tags/45875/3 "2019-07-12T14:36:59Z")
Thank you. Not sure I understand the import file setup. Assuming we have a .txt or .csv file with 4 songs %artist%;%title%;%album%;%year% Artist1;title1;album1;year1 Artist2;title2;album2;year2 Artist3;title3;album3;year3 Artist4;title4;album4;year4 ---
**Author:** ![ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/ohrenkino/32/4843_2.png) [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 3:12pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/merge-fields-in-album-tags/45875/4 "2019-07-12T15:12:39Z")
Make sure that the separator between the fields is really unique and not part of the data. Do not include the field list in data file - you have to enter that when you call the function Convert\>Text file - Tag. A little detour: The data forms some kind of table where the data for each field can be found in a column of the table and the whole data for each file is represented by a column row. If you do not want to import the data from a certain column, enter as fieldname `%dummy%` To align the data in the rows with the files, you either have the same order in the files as in the rows or you include a field that shows the filename as this is then used to align data and file. ---
**Author:** ![prozakis](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/7feea3/32.png) [@prozakis](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/prozakis)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 3:49pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/merge-fields-in-album-tags/45875/5 "2019-07-12T15:49:18Z")
Thanks. Since I am only interested to change the values in 2 fields, **title** and **artist** , nothing else. Is ot ok to only import a txt file that will include only changes in these 2 fields ? Like that %artist%;%title% Artist1;title1 Artist2;title2 Artist3;title3 Artist4;title4 and leave the rest of the fields intact ? ---
**Author:** ![ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/ohrenkino/32/4843_2.png) [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 3:50pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/merge-fields-in-album-tags/45875/6 "2019-07-12T15:50:43Z")
Exactly, only the named fields get new data. But as I said: if the data file has the structure > [@prozakis](#): > > %artist%;%title%;%album%;%year% > Artist1;title1;album1;year1 and you only want > [@prozakis](#): > > %artist%;%title% > Artist1;title1 you have to use %artist%;%title%;%dummy%;%dummy% ---
**Author:** ![prozakis](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/7feea3/32.png) [@prozakis](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/prozakis)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 3:51pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/merge-fields-in-album-tags/45875/7 "2019-07-12T15:51:30Z")
And the key to identify the record is the filename ? ---
**Author:** ![ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/ohrenkino/32/4843_2.png) [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 3:55pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/merge-fields-in-album-tags/45875/8 "2019-07-12T15:55:43Z")
yes, or the order of the data in the text file matches the order of the files. Then the data from the first line in the text file is used for the first selected file, the second line for the second file and so on. ---
**Author:** ![prozakis](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/7feea3/32.png) [@prozakis](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/prozakis)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 4:02pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/merge-fields-in-album-tags/45875/9 "2019-07-12T16:02:22Z")
> [@prozakis](#): > > %artist%;%title% ![image](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/2X/a/a251f2a229bb9d0d1945bb205dc1f0b9a427d8a5.png) It looks like this and ... "cannot be opened for reading" ---
**Author:** ![ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/ohrenkino/32/4843_2.png) [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 4:08pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/merge-fields-in-album-tags/45875/10 "2019-07-12T16:08:16Z")
You would have to save the excel file as a text file or CSV file. Also, I would arrange the columns in the excel source in such a way that you only get filled columns. Which means: delete all columns that currently have the header "%dummy%". The text file also should not contain the column headers like %\_filename% but only data. So, what do the first 2 line of the text file look like? And which field list have you used to import the data? ---
**Author:** ![prozakis](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/7feea3/32.png) [@prozakis](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/prozakis)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 4:16pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/merge-fields-in-album-tags/45875/11 "2019-07-12T16:16:30Z")
![image](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/2X/b/b7deb87cfe2617bdb3616f93647f217e8de45935.png) no, sorry ---
**Author:** ![ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/ohrenkino/32/4843_2.png) [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 4:18pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/merge-fields-in-album-tags/45875/12 "2019-07-12T16:18:18Z")
The Format string should read %\_filename\_ext%;%artist% ---
**Author:** ![prozakis](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/7feea3/32.png) [@prozakis](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/prozakis)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 4:26pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/merge-fields-in-album-tags/45875/13 "2019-07-12T16:26:39Z")
you mean like this ? ![image](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/2X/7/751817b2d201cfebbd063303e1d6203d0c5d8e74.png) ---
**Author:** ![ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/ohrenkino/32/4843_2.png) [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 4:31pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/merge-fields-in-album-tags/45875/14 "2019-07-12T16:31:56Z")
I don't know - that is why i would like to see the first 2 lines of the text file. I would assume that they look like 15\_Atlantis\_Keep on moving.flac;Various Artists and this would import with a Format string: %\_filename\_ext%;%artist% (on the other hand: if the ARTIST should be "Various Artists" all along, it is much easier to select the files, enter "Various Artists" in the field ARTIST in the tag panel and save the modification) ---
**Author:** ![prozakis](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/7feea3/32.png) [@prozakis](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/prozakis)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 4:35pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/merge-fields-in-album-tags/45875/15 "2019-07-12T16:35:07Z")
![image](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/2X/8/89d938172936782d0fca14339e975fba720d913f.png) I managed to open the preview, but you are right, I will simply the value in the column ---
**Author:** ![prozakis](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/7feea3/32.png) [@prozakis](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/prozakis)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 4:36pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/merge-fields-in-album-tags/45875/16 "2019-07-12T16:36:22Z")
![image](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/2X/0/0483e8c29e6240565f9421c4e5aa6ec4b7993047.png) and this is how my file looks like ---
**Author:** ![ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/ohrenkino/32/4843_2.png) [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 4:42pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/merge-fields-in-album-tags/45875/17 "2019-07-12T16:42:02Z")
The data structure does not look like the format string that you entered. Instead you have something like `%_filename_ext%%title%|%album%|%artist%` This text file does not match that what you have shown as excel source. ---
**Author:** ![prozakis](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/p/7feea3/32.png) [@prozakis](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/prozakis)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 4:43pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/merge-fields-in-album-tags/45875/18 "2019-07-12T16:43:44Z")
Now I will change the value manually and I will retry tomorrow Thank you so much for your time and patience ---
**Author:** ![system](https://community.mp3tag.de/uploads/default/original/2X/c/ce7035d426cb755a7916793326d23b465222a407.png) [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2026, 12:28pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/merge-fields-in-album-tags/45875/19 "2026-02-09T12:28:09Z")