My menu import didn't work

What each menu-import message means — couldn't read the menu, a link that won't open, missing dishes, wrong prices, doubled dishes — and what to try instead.

Each message means something specific. Almost all of these happen before anything reaches your real menu — nothing is created until you press the confirm button on the review screen — so a failed import costs you nothing but another go. See importing your menu for how the whole thing works.

"We couldn't read that menu just now — please try again in a moment"

The reader itself didn't answer. Nothing is wrong with your file. Press Read the menu again — and if a second go doesn't take, try a different way in: a photo instead of a PDF, or your dishes from a spreadsheet, which doesn't use the reader at all.

"We couldn't read that menu — please try a clearer photo, or type the dishes in"

This is the general "it didn't work" message: the menu was tried and nothing usable came out of it. What tends to help, in order:

• A straighter, brighter photo. One page per photo, the whole page in frame, no fingers over the prices, no glare from a spotlight.
• The PDF instead, if you have the file you send to the printers — it reads far more reliably than a photograph of the printed copy.
• A spreadsheet. Dish name and price in two columns is enough, and no AI reads it, so it always behaves the same way.

Where that message says "type the dishes in", it means adding them by hand with Add a dish on the Menu page — there's no typing-in option inside the import itself.

The web link didn't work

Two different messages, two different causes:

• "We couldn't open that web page — please check the link, or upload the menu instead." We couldn't get the page at all. Check for a typo first, but the commonest reason is simply that the website turned us away — plenty of sites are set up to refuse anything that isn't a person in a browser, and there's nothing you can change on your side to fix that. Open the page yourself, save it as a PDF, and import that instead. Photographing the printed menu works just as well.
• "We couldn't find any menu text on that page — please upload the menu instead." The page opened, but the menu on it isn't text — it's a picture, or an embedded PDF viewer, so there was nothing to read. Download or photograph the menu itself and import that.

A menu behind a login or a cookie wall won't read either, for the same reason: we only ever see what a visitor with no account would see.

"We couldn't read a menu out of that"

The reader answered, but nothing on it looked like a menu. You'll see this in place of the review table, with Start again underneath. Try a clearer photo, a different file, or the spreadsheet route. It's also worth checking you imported the right page — a wine list or an allergen chart won't come out as dishes.

The prices came out wrong

Fix them on the review screen, before you confirm. Nothing has been created yet, so a wrong price there costs you nothing but a moment's typing.

The reader flags prices it wasn't sure about in amber, and says why:

• "We read the printed prices as a '…' choice — please check each option's price" — a dish printed with two prices (small/large, glass/bottle) has come through as one dish with a size choice: the lower printed price is the dish's price, the difference is the option's extra cost. Check both against what the menu printed, shown on the row.
• "This dish prints more than one price and we couldn't read them all — add each price as a choice below, or set the right single price" — a two-price dish where one of the prices couldn't be read cleanly. It's deliberately held back rather than imported with only the readable price; open Allergens, dietary & choices on the row to add the prices as a choice, or type a single price.
• "This dish prints more than one price and we couldn't build the choice automatically — add each price as a choice below, or set the right single price" — the prices were read fine, but the step that turns them into a size choice didn't work on this run (it's tried twice before giving up). The fix is the same as above: add the prices as a choice on the row, or set a single price — and re-running the import often builds the choices for you.
• "We found more than one price here — please pick the right one" and "This looked like a price range — please pick the right price" — more than one figure and no clear size reading, or a genuine "£8–£12" range. Type the one you want, or build a choice on the row.
• "We corrected what looked like a scanning slip in this price — please check it" — a letter that was almost certainly a digit (an O read as a zero). Usually right, always worth a glance.
• "This price looked too high to be right — please check it" — anything over £1,000 is far more likely a misread than a real dish, so it's left blank for you.
• "No price was found for this item — please add one" and "This item is priced on request — please add a price" — nothing was printed, or the menu said "market price". A dish needs a price before it can be created.
• "This looks like a dish customers build in steps, but we couldn't read every printed detail — add its choice steps by hand below" — a build-your-own dish (choose your patty, add toppings) where the reader couldn't read every option's printed extra cost cleanly, so no offer is made rather than a half-built one. Open Allergens, dietary & choices on the row and add the steps yourself — the menu in front of you is the truth.

Any row with a price worth checking shows what the menu actually printed, so you can check against it or copy it straight across. Rows with no name or no price are red and hold the confirm button shut until you deal with them: "One dish still needs a name or a price before you can confirm" — and the "N to fix" count at the top is a button that shows you just those rows.

My drinks are marked "Contains alcohol" — why?

Dishes whose name, description or section reads as an alcoholic drink — a "Wines" page, "House lager", "Aperol spritz" — arrive with the Contains alcohol tick already on, each with an amber note saying so: "This looks like an alcoholic drink, so we've ticked 'Contains alcohol' — please untick it if that's wrong". The tick marks a dish for 18+ age checks when customers order and pay from their phones (Order & Pay); it changes nothing else.

It's a suggestion, not a decision: untick any dish from its Allergens, dietary & choices expander (or the note's row), and use the section header's Mark all as contains alcohol / Unmark all button for a whole section at once. If something non-alcoholic was ticked — or a drink was missed ("House red" on its own says nothing a reader can safely act on) — that's exactly what the review screen is for.

Some of my menu is missing

Look at the amber Worth knowing about this import panel at the top of the review screen — anything left out is named there. The usual reasons:

• A limit was reached. One import holds up to 500 dishes, 40 sections, and 150 dishes in any one section. You'll see "Only the first 500 dishes were imported — please add any others by hand", "Only the first 40 sections were imported — please add any others by hand", or "Only the first 150 dishes in 'Mains' were imported" (with your own section's name). Import the rest as a second go afterwards.
• A section couldn't be read — "We couldn't read any dishes in 'Sides' — please add them by hand", or a section skipped because none of its dishes were readable.
• A dish had no name and was skipped, which is nearly always a stray line of decoration rather than a real dish.

If whole pages are missing instead, check they were all in the upload — you can send up to 12 photos at a time, in page order, and if you choose more than that you'll see "We've taken the first 12 — that's the most we can read in one go. Import the rest afterwards."

It wouldn't take my file

• "…isn't a PDF — please choose the menu's PDF file" or "…isn't a photo — please choose JPEG, PNG, WEBP or HEIC images" — the wrong kind of file for the option you picked (the message names the file). Word and Pages documents aren't read; save as PDF first.
• "…is bigger than 8 MB — please use a smaller file" — 8 MB is the ceiling per file. A photo that big is usually a very high-resolution scan; a normal phone photo is well under it.
• "Those files are too big together — please import fewer pages at a time" — the pages are fine one by one but too much all at once. Send half, then the rest.
• "That menu is too big to import in one go — please import it a few sections at a time" — an unusually large menu. Split it: photograph the starters and mains, import those, then come back for the rest.

Spreadsheet problems

• "Please choose a .csv file" — save your spreadsheet as CSV first (in Excel or Numbers, File → Save as / Export, and pick CSV).
• "That file looks empty — it needs a heading row plus at least one dish" — the first row must be your column headings, with the dishes underneath.
• "Match a Dish Name column and a Price column to carry on" — on the Match the columns screen those two are required. Everything else (Section, Description, Allergens, Dietary) is optional; leave any column you don't need on — Ignore —.
• "We couldn't read '£9 or £12' as a price — please type it in" — the price cell couldn't be read as one number, and the message quotes back whatever your spreadsheet had. Fix it on the review screen.
• "3 rows had no dish name and were left out" — blank or decorative rows in the file. Harmless, but worth a glance if the count looks high.
• "Only the first 500 dishes were read — please import the rest in a second file" — a spreadsheet longer than one import holds. Split it and run it twice.

I've ended up with two of everything

Importing the same menu twice adds it twice unless you tell it not to. When dishes match ones you already have — same section, same name — the review screen asks, and the three answers are Update them (rewrite your existing dishes with the imported prices), Skip them (leave yours alone, add only the new ones) and Add them anyway (which is what gives you two of each).

Doubles WITHIN one import get their own question too: if the import itself lists the same dish name more than once — a page photographed twice, say — a panel offers Merge into one or Keep both for each, so a first import can't quietly create everything twice.

If it's already happened, remove the extras from the Menu page, or — if the whole menu is a mess — run the import again and use Replace my whole menu, which clears everything first. That one asks you to type REPLACE MENU and to confirm your identity, and it can't be undone.

"We've added as many dishes as we can in one go"

The full message is "We've added as many dishes as we can in one go — wait a few minutes and carry on where this left off." A very large menu can hit the ceiling on how many dishes can be created in an hour. Everything up to that point is safely on your menu, and the screen stays open on The import has paused part-way with a Carry on adding the rest button — press it when you're ready and it picks up exactly where it stopped, without adding the same dish twice. The same paused screen appears if the connection drops mid-way: what landed is counted honestly, and Carry on finishes the job.

"This menu is very large, so we've split it into parts"

A truly enormous menu is read in parts rather than refused. You check and confirm the first part as normal; once it's added, the screen offers the rest — "47 dishes didn't fit in that part. Continue with those now?" — and each part goes through the same review screen before anything is created. Not ready? The remaining parts are kept for 7 days and offered again next time you open Import menu.

"Menu reading is unavailable just now"

The full message offers the way round it: "Menu reading is unavailable just now — please import a spreadsheet or add the dishes by hand, and get in touch if you need a hand." The spreadsheet route genuinely does still work, because nothing reads it for you. Get in touch and we'll sort it.

"That menu file is no longer available — please upload it again"

Your photo or PDF is deleted the moment it's been read — we never keep it — so an import that has to be picked up again later has nothing left to re-read. Upload the file again and it'll run from the start.

I closed the window and lost my corrections

The review screen warns before it closes — Close the menu import? — and tells you plainly: "Nothing has been added to your menu yet, and the changes you've made on this screen won't be kept." Your menu is untouched, but the edits you'd made to the imported list are gone. Run the import again — and this time confirm before you close it.