Importing prices from QIF compatible text editor

I just made up a text file (ASCII) with the price of a stock I own and imported it into Quicken 2004 using the directions indicated, and it worked. Make sure you follow the part about going to portfolio and file and import-prices. That selection is only available on the portfolio page and not on the individual account pages.

I also imported using a .qif format, but it was done with the import prices selection and not the import Qif file selection. Once again you have to be on the Investing Center page to get the selection of Import prices. I did try the Import QIF and it did not seem to work, using the same .qif file.

Clark

All the examples you provided are valid price records, but the next to last one

"ABC", 123.456, "12/31/96"

matches the format that Quicken for Windows uses when it

Things are not the same for Mac and Windows versions, so I'm not sure I can be much help.

But speaking from the Windows version point of view; the editor you use has nothing to do with any problems you may have with QIF files. The QIF file format is trivially simple and QIF files can be created by, or modified by, any word processor. (Naturally, you do want to save them with the file extension "QIF" - Macs do have file extensions, don't they?).

I do vaguely remember that Mac versions of Quicken had some date format differences and if that were true, perhaps that could explain some problems. I think that before Y2K all QIF file formats were exactly the same, but when changes had to be made to accommodate Y2K, not all versions treated dates the same way anymore. In theory, you can check that out by exporting a QIF file from your data and checking the format of its dates ... pre and post 2000.

And to test the format needed, you could just create a test QIF file with two prices, one for each of two securities; and try importing that.

It's not totally clear from your post what specific process you are engaged in, but if you are attempting to export all your prices from one file and import them into another file, you may be running into a problem that is known to occur in the Windows version. When Quicken exports prices to a QIF file, it adds an invalid price "record" as the last price "record" for each security exported. Here is an example of one such "record" for Allstate from a QIF export I just did from my Q2005 deluxe for Windows data:

"ALL",524607.03327,"33/193'4465"

If you try to import a QIF file containing such price records, the import will fail when it first hits one of those records ... but Qucken will not tell you anything is amiss. You should be able to avoid that problem by just deleting the offending records from the QIF file (including the "!Type Prices" header and the "^" trailer).

Also, in Windows versions of Quicken, if you have a file containing nothing but records formatted like your example price records (that is: with no QIF file header/trailer records), and you have the Portfolio View open, you can import that file by

File > Import > Import Prices

And web sites like Yahoo, will give you just such price files if you establish a Portfolio there and ask to download it to a "spreadsheet".

As it turns out I my text editor (Clarisworks 4) is in fact able to output ("Save As") a file format ("text") that Quicken can import. My problem was far more fundamental. Apparently, after a recent rebuild of my corrupted Quicken file, in the Security Setup dialogue I had reentered the security symbol for the prices in question as PZAXX (incorrect) instead of PZAAX (correct). (At least I assume this is what happened because I can't figure any other way PZAAX would become PZAXX after years of sucessful price downloads for this security.)

I love it when the problem is that simple. (-8

Then after a bit of trial and error with the many file formats Clarisworks can save to I discovered "Save As" > "text" file renders a file that Quickens "Import QIF" command would recognise and I was able to get all my historical prices back from a back up file on another computer.

Quicken 2000 doesn't have an "Investing Center" page or an Import-Prices command accessible from the Portfolio window. My only avenue to manually import prices (as opposed to downloading prices) is through the "Import QIF" command.

Clark, thanks for the reply.

Dennis van Dam

As it turns out this is exactly the case for Mac as well. What was throwing me on my text editor is that, upon opening the exported QIF price file it was converting the file to a format it could read. I could then edit the file to my hearts content but what I couldn't do was save the changes back to the QIF file I had opened. I also couldn't save the edited file as a new QIF file (in other words my text editor is capable of saving to many different file format types but QIF is not one of them). Saving the edited file to the format native to the text editor (Clarisworks 4) was not recognised by Quicken. After some trial and error I discovered that the edited file saved in "text" format was recognised by Quickens "Import QIF" command.

But as I mentioned to Clark this was only half the problem. Somewhere along the line, in the target Quicken file I was importing the prices into, I managed to change the security symbol for this particular fund from PZAAX to PZAXX which is incorrect. Once I straightened that out it all worked fine

Not necessary on Mac platform. Macs don't use file extensions in the file name to ID file types. They use a four letter "file type" code and a four letter "creator" code both embedded in the file to ID the file type and the parent application the file will use to open. An application with the right capability, such as ResEdit (Resource Editor) can edit these codes but even so, changing these codes to match an application you want to use to open the file won't work unless the application is actually capable of reading the file type of the file.

May or may not be an issue with Mac platform but I'm going to save your post in my Quicken Notes folder for possible future reference. If this is an issue for me it's something I would likely never be able to sleuth out on my own without being told what to look for.

Yeah, as I mentioned to Clark, this is a feature either unique to later versions of Quicken (I'm on Q2000) or unique to Windows platform. I have no such commands up in the menu bar or as Clark suggested, in the Portfolio window. I've been given to understand there is quite a bit available in Quicken for Windows not available in Quicken for Mac. I have the ability to export prices only(but all of them not just some of them), as a QIF and then import that QIF, which would be an import of prices only, but without employing a text editor I cannot selectively export/import a price history for selected securities which is what I was working at. The reason for wanting selective export/import is I'm not sure if Quicken will "merge" price histories of dissimilar but overlapping date ranges or if one will overwrite the other. I didn't want to take any chances so I confined my import to just the security in question.

I have visited Yahoo's finance page. Will keep this option in mind for future reference.

John, thanks very much for the detailed reply.

Dennis van Dam