How to import data from spreadsheets in Notion
Notion first came into our lives as a modern note taking app. It has since grown to be not just a companion for individuals but the preferred documentation tool for thousands of businesses. It acts as a company wiki, a CRM for Sales, a study planner or anything in between.
One of the coolest things about Notion is the ability to import or embed features from other applications. Similar to our recent article on creating charts in Notion, this article will guide you on how to import or embed third party data - from spreadsheets - in Notion.
1. Rows
Rows is a web application for creating modern, beautiful and rich spreadsheets. It combines a spreadsheet editor, data integrations (e.g. Social media, Google Analytics, Salesforce, Stripe) and a novel sharing experience that turns any spreadsheet into a website in one-click.
Import a spreadsheet from Rows into Notion by following these steps:
If you haven't signed up for Rows, do that here and login to your account.
Create a spreadsheet by clicking on the Create Spreadsheet button and add your data. If you already have data in a csv or xlsx file, click Import file and import it to Rows.
Once the data is ready, click the Share button on the top right corner of the toolbar, next to the Live button and turn on Share privately with the link.
4. On the spreadsheet, click on the table with the data you want to import to reveal the “...” options menu on its top right corner. Select Embed from the list of options. From the popup, select Copy URL to copy the link to Notion.
5. In your Notion, paste your link and choose the Create embed option. Adjust the size of the embed.
The great thing about this method is that the Notion document is now synced with the spreadsheet. Changes made to the spreadsheet database in Rows, update automatically in Notion, with no need to manually manipulate data in Notion.
Once embedded, you can scroll inside the table and even perform calculations inside it using Rows’ action elements. This is perfect for adding long lists of data inside Notion, or adding budget calculations, forecasts or other mathematical tools inside a Notion page.
Plus, you can embed specific elements from the spreadsheet such as charts and make your reports stand out with interactive charts.
There are plenty of other ways to use Rows to make your Notion documents stand out. Learn more about it here or see our pre-built Notion templates for a Paid Marketing Report, a Website Traffic Overview Report, a Growth Experiments Report, and for your Weekly Team Sync Notes.
Combine tables and charts to add interactive charts to Notion
2. Excel
You can also use Microsoft Excel to create spreadsheets and import them in Notion. Here’s how:
First, save your Excel sheet as a csv file. To do that click File and then Save As. From the file format drop-down options, select csv.
2. In Notion, click the Import button at the bottom of the left-hand side panel.
3. From the popup menu select the CSV option.
4. This will open another popup menu that lets you locate the csv file on your computer. Choose the file that you exported from Excel.
5. Select the file and click Open to import and render the spreadsheet into your Notion.
Now that your data was imported to Notion, you can do any changes directly in the Notion database. Importing an Excel spreadsheet into Notion opens it up to a number of features and controls. You can format rows and columns, add formulas, filter and sort the display of the data. Learn how to add formulas to a Notion database here.
3. Google Sheets
Google Sheets is one of Google’s suite of online web-based applications. It is used to create, edit and collaborate on spreadsheets. You can also use it to import spreadsheets in Notion. You can both import and embed Google Sheets in Notion. Let’s see how to do it.
Import a Google Sheet file into Notion
Download your Google Sheets file with the Comma Separated Values (.csv) extension. To do that click File and then Download. From the file format drop-down options, select csv.
2. In Notion, click the Import button at the bottom of the left panel.
3. From the popup menu select the CSV option.
4. This will open another popup menu that lets you locate and choose the csv file you saved from Google Sheets onto your computer.
5. Select the file and click Open to import and render the spreadsheet into Notion.
Embed a Google Sheet file into Notion
On your Google Sheets file, click the Share button to reveal a popup.
Inside General Access select Anyone with the link and copy the link.
By default, this means that people who see the embed can view the content of the spreadsheet.
If you want people to edit the spreadsheet inside Notion, choose the “Editor” role on the option next to the Anyone with the link permission
3. In Notion, type /embed and paste your link to render your spreadsheet.
Changes made to the spreadsheet in Google Sheets update automatically in Notion and vice versa.
Unlike in Rows, with Google Sheets you can only embed the full spreadsheet inside the Notion document. This is helpful if you want to add the full context of the spreadsheet to Notion, but limiting in case you just want to add a specific element to the doc - a table, or a chart.
Conclusion
The world changes, but one thing stays the same. Spreadsheets are the easiest way for businesses to use data and manipulate freely. As Notion becomes more embedded into a team's workflow, so does the need to sync your wiki with your spreadsheets,
Rows is the easiest way to embed spreadsheets in Notion. Be it large tables of data, charts or calculators, thousands of fast-growing teams rely on Rows as the perfect number-crunching sidekick to their Notion docs. Sign up today and try a new way to spreadsheet.
