Google Docs import problem

[Ernie]

Does your Google Docs download no longer show flashcards correctly?

Google Docs has changed the format of data when transferring from Google into Flashcards Deluxe. This will probably not affect most people, but you will be affected if you use either new lines or quotes in your spreadsheet. New lines will appear as a space, and quotes will just mess up how Flashcards Deluxe interprets the data.

SOLUTION:
Until the new update comes up, the solution is to create a second sheet with formulas to make the necessary conversions in Google Docs:
(I'm assuming you have flashcard text already created on "Sheet 1".)

1) Tap + at bottom to add a new sheet
2) Drag the new sheet to the left to make it the first sheet. Only the first sheet will be imported by the app!
3) Paste the following formula into cell A1 into the new sheet:
=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE('Sheet 1'!A1,char(10),"|"),"""","“")
Notice how the formula references "Sheet 1". If you've renamed your main/initial sheet, change the formula appropriately.
4) Copy cell A1 in your new sheet and paste down and across. You will need copy across the same number of columns and rows used in your main/initial sheet.
5) Import from the app as usual.

With this solution, you maintain the text on your main sheet. Just remember that if you add new rows, you'll need to copy your formula down to the new rows. it's OK to copy the formula across or down to more rows that you are using on your main sheet.

Another solution (to this temporary problem) to use Excel to save the worksheet in Unicode format and load from Dropbox.

The updated app which will fix all this should be ready for download around July 22. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Ernie

[spitzmuller]

I guess I'll just wait for your update. Not using newlines in Google Docs is not an option for me. Or do you know a smarter way to format card text?

Anyway, thanks in advance for correcting this! Ernie for president!

Greets Simon

[Ernie]

The quotes is the real problem. As for new-lines, they get sent from Google as a space. I mentioned you can use a formula to change all new-lines to a pipe character and that should allow that to work. If you have Excel and dropbox, save your Excel file as Unicode text and download from dropbox. That should work fine using your existing text.

[wextrix]

I'm not quite sure I follow the work-around. My buddy and I both bought this app to help study for the California Bar and have spent the last month or so making flash cards in Google Docs (so we can both work simultaneously in the same file). Since we are constantly tweaking/updating the cards, Dropbox is a pain b/c it starts adding additional steps (which is the reason we went for the google docs implementation).

When do you think this will be fixed? The exam is at the end of July and I would hate to think that we just spent an entire month making very complex/formatted flashcards only to find out we can use them. Also, what is the current workaround? You mentioned a formula, but to the best of my understanding, a formula won't re-write all of the cells (let alone all of the cells in 30-some excel files). Is there some other way to replace all of our new lines (if it matters, we used the ctrl+enter method).

[Ernie]

Please read my updated post at the top of this thread. I've provided what I think is a good temporary solution. Let me know if you have any problems with it.

[wextrix]

Ah, those directions make a bit more sense now. However, I had to tweak the formula slightly to get it to work. Copy/Paste directly into gdocs from Chrome and FF leads to a parse error. I had to rename the sheet from "Sheet 1" to "Sheet1" as the default doesn't have a space. I also had to delete all of the " (with the exception of the special one) and re-enter them in the formula in google as otherwise it threw a different error. Once I did that, everything worked just fine. Thanks!!! (HUGE sigh of relief!!)

[Ernie]

Thanks for letting me know about the formula error. Yeah, the quotes in my post were messed up; not sure how it got like that. I think I fixed it so it should work for others now.

[nbonham]

The easiest thing to do is just save the excel sheet as a Unicode .txt file and send it to Dropbox. Then upload it in the app. It preserves lines within cells. It will be nice when the update comes out. Google Docs is much easier to deal with.

[spitzmuller]

So does that mean that with GoogleDocs from now on I'll have to use the workaround you mentioned above to get newlines in my cards? Or will your update fix the problem and everything is like it was before? Probably the former, huh?

Thanks anyway for your quick help Simon

[Ernie]

The update will fix the problem the make it work like it did before.