I'd like to be able to subscribe a large list of people, each with his/her
own topic requests. I haven't been able to find anything on this in the
documentation. My test using the bulk operation didn't set the right topic
preferences (set the default). I used this syntax:

[log in to unmask]    first last      topics=topic1 topic2 topic3

1. Is it possible to set subscriber preferences with the bulk upload web
interface? If so, what's the syntax? (what am I doing wrong?)

2. If not, any suggestions for other ways of accomplishing this?

I'm working with an office that will be receiving user preferences on a
postcard for news topics. This information will be entered into a contact
management system, from which I hope to export a subscriber list that I can
upload.

With thanks,
khm