Editing a CSV File Exported by Storyboard Pro

How to open and edit a CSV file in an external spreadsheet editor is up to the software you choose to use. The most commonly used spreadsheet editors that support CSV files are Microsoft Excel, LibreOffice Calc and Google Sheets.

The following are guidelines to follow when using a spreadsheet editor to edit your CSV file:

  • Microsoft Excel will display but will not save non-latin characters (ie: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc.) to CSV format. Hence, if you want to edit your CSV file in a spreadsheet editor and your captions use non-latin characters, you must use LibreOffice Calc or Google Sheets instead.

  • If you want to use another software, test it first by opening the exported CSV file in your software, saving it as a copy and importing the copy back into your Storyboard Pro project to see if it causes any unexpected issue.
  • You can open a CSV file directly in Microsoft Excel and LibreOffice Calc. To open a CSV file in Google Sheets, you must upload it to your drive, view it, then click Open with Google Sheets near the top.
  • When opening the CSV file, you may be prompted to provide the following information:

    • Character Set / File Origin / Encoding: This is the name of the character set selected in the Encoding drop-down of the Export to CSV dialog. The default Encoding for CSV files exported by Storyboard Pro is UTF-8.
    • Delimited or Fixed Width: CSV files exported by Storyboard Pro are always delimited.
    • Separators / Delimiters: This is the character used to separate the fields, which can be selected in the Field Separator drop-down of the Export to CSV dialog. By default, CSV files exported by Storyboard Pro are separated by commas (,).
    • String Delimiter / Text Qualifier: CSV files exported by Storyboard Pro use double-quotes (").
  • In the spreadsheet, line breaks in the captions will be represented by the new line symbol \n.
  • Microsoft Excel and LibreOffice Calc may prompt you to save the file using their own spreadsheet format, as those formats support storing more information than the CSV format. However, Storyboard Pro can only import spreadsheets in CSV format. Hence, you must confirm that you want to save your spreadsheet in CSV format.
  • Google Sheets will automatically save your spreadsheet in XLSX format when you make any change to it. You can still export the modified sheet in CSV format by selecting File > Download > Comma separated values (.csv, current sheet) from the top menu.