Creating a spreadsheet

You can use whatever your favorite spreadsheet application is, as long as it supports exporting to CSV (which is the format that AO3 Poster knows how to understand!)

When you’re entering data into your spreadsheet, you may include any of the following columns:

Column header
(* = Required)
Data type

Rating * Not Rated, General Audiences, Teen And Up Audiences, Mature, or Explicit
Archive Warnings * Comma-separated list of AO3 archive warnings (as they appear on the New Post form.)
Fandoms * Comma-separated list of AO3 fandom tags
Category Comma-separated list of AO3 categories (as they appear on the New Post form.)
Relationships Comma-separated list of AO3 relationship tags
Characters Comma-separated list of AO3 character tags
Additional Tags Comma-separated list of tags
Work Title * Text
Creator/Pseud(s) Comma-separated list of creator AO3 pseuds / usernames.
Add co-creators? Comma-separated list of co-creator AO3 pseuds / usernames.
Summary Text
Notes at the beginning Text
Notes at the end Text
Language * Valid AO3 language name (as they appear on the New Post form.)
Work text Work HTML. Don’t include if you want to use a work template.

All values included for columns must exactly match the values that AO3 expects (including capitalization) or your submission will fail. (Or in the case of tags, it will not be tagged as you intended.) Comma-separated values must not have spaces after commas.

_images/example-spreadsheet.png

“Parent work” data, which you enter in AO3 by checking the box next to “This work is a remix, a translation, a podfic, or was inspired by another work”, can be modified with the following special column headers:

Column header
(* = Required)
Data type

Parent Work URL URL for the parent work.
Parent Work Title Title for the parent work. (Not required if the parent work is on AO3.)
Parent Work Author Author for the parent work. (Not required if the parent work is on AO3.)

You can also include additional columns; these will not be submitted to AO3 directly but they will be available in your work text template.

Once your spreadsheet is created, export it as a CSV and save it on your computer to use with AO3 Poster.