Import Notes Stored In Another Programme

If you have a cache of notes stored in another programme – e.g. Word or Excel – import them into Little Acorns as follows:

1. Export your notes in .txt, .csv or .tab file format, or save them as a .txt file.
2. Open your .txt file.

If the format of your data resembles these 2 records:

John Dory To boil:□After they have been cleaned, the fins should be cut off.□It is dressed in the same manner, and served with the same sauce as a turbot, but requires less time to boil it.

John Dory To bake:□After they have been cleaned, dry them in a cloth, season with salt, dredge a little flour on the fish, and stick a few bits of butter on them, but only just sufficient to prevent them becoming dry in the oven.□Lay them singly on a flat dish, and bake them gently for 14 to 16 minutes.□Serve then with the same sauces as baked sole.

That is, a series of Category/Project titles separated from their notes by tab spaces, and lines in each note separated from each other with rectangle symbols, you should be able to import them into Little Acorns as is.

However, if the format of your data resembles these 2 records:

John Dory

To boil:

After they have been cleaned, the fins should be cut off.

It is dressed in the same manner, and served with the same sauce as a turbot, but requires less time to boil it.

John Dory

To bake:

After they have been cleaned, dry them in a cloth, season with salt, dredge a little flour on the fish, and stick a few bits of butter on them, but only just sufficient to prevent them becoming dry in the oven.

Lay them singly on a flat dish, and bake them gently for 14 to 16 minutes.

Serve then with the same sauces as baked sole.

That is, a series of Category/Project titles followed by notes for same on separate lines, with each line of the same note on separate lines, and spaces between separate records, you’ll need to amend the data.

Otherwise, Little Acorns will interpret each line of data – even the blank rows – as a separate record.

How may you do this?

Ensure that each Category/Project title is separated from its Note by a tab space.

So, if each record in your original is in this format:

John Dory

To boil:

After they have been cleaned, the fins should be cut off.

It is dressed in the same manner, and served with the same sauce as a turbot, but requires less time to boil it.

you’ll need to alter them so that each record looks like this:

John Dory To boil:□After they have been cleaned, the fins should be cut off.□It is dressed in the same manner, and served with the same sauce as a turbot, but requires less time to boil it.

If you aim to import notes to one/few Category/Project titles, you may do this via a simple Find/Replace, as follows:

1. Open your .txt file in Notepad++.
2. Open the Notepad++ Find/Replace dialogue, by pressing Ctrl+H.
3. Check the Search Mode, Extended box.
4. In the Find what box, enter your Category/Project title followed by the string:

\r\n\r\n.

5. So, using our example, you’d enter the following in the Find what box:

John Dory\r\n\r\n

6. in the Replace with box, enter your Category/Project title followed by the string:

\t

7. So, using our example, you’d enter the following in the Replace with box:

John Dory\t

8. Click the Replace All button.

(N.B. If you need to replace many distinct Category/Project titles, you may find it easier to go through your document manually – replacing each end-of-line CR LF code with a tab space – than processing an exhaustive list of Category/Project titles via Find/Replace.)

Next, you’ll get rid of blank spaces between records, as follows:

1. Open your .txt file in Notepad++.
2. Open the Notepad++ Find/Replace dialogue, by pressing Ctrl+H.
3. Check the Search Mode, Extended box.
4. In the Find what box, enter:

\r\n\r\n

5. In the Replace with box, enter:

[Record]

6. Click the Replace All button.

This should have removed blank spaces between records.

And marked the end of each record with the placeholder text:

[Record]

Next, you’ll combine separate rows in the same record into one row containing symbols that mark where their separate lines fall, as follows:

1. Open the Notepad++ Replace dialogue, by pressing Ctrl+H.
2. Check the Search Mode, Regular Expression box.
3. In the Find what box, enter:

\r\n

4. In the Replace with box, enter the symbol:

\v

5. Click the Replace All button.
6. This should have joined separate lines within a single record together, but marked line breaks between sentences in a record with the code:

VT

Finally, divide your data into separate records by replacing the placeholder text:

[Record]

with a line break, as follows:

1. Open the Notepad++ Replace dialogue, by pressing Ctrl+H.
2. Check the Search Mode, Extended box.
3. In the Find what box, enter:

[Record]

4. In the Replace with box, enter:

\r\n

5. Click the Replace All button.
6. Save your .txt file.

Your records should now be in the correct format to be imported into Little Acorns via the import facility.