How to keep line breaks when importing from Google Sheets to Anki (without using HTML)?

Anki Help
1

I’m trying to import data from Google Sheets into Anki and want to preserve line breaks as they are.

For example, in my spreadsheet I have:
Deoxy-ribo-nucleic acid.
Deoxyribonucleic acid.

These are in a single cell, separated by a line break.

But when I import the CSV into Anki, the content is displayed as a single line in the card, like this:
Deoxy-ribo-nucleic acid. Deoxyribonucleic acid.

I know that I can insert < /br > tags manually to force a line break in Anki, but I want to avoid injecting HTML into my spreadsheet.

Is there a way to preserve line breaks from a Google Sheet (or CSV export) into Anki without manually adding HTML?

Is there a workaround that doesn’t involve manually editing every cell with < /br>?

2

There are two ways to include newlines or the field separator in fields.

– Text Files - Anki Manual. I haven’t personally had consistent luck with the non-HTML method – but admittedly, I haven’t tried very hard to get it to work.

If the above doesn’t work for you – as HTML goes, a <br> tag is fairly minor, and quite reliable. It is also exactly what would be created if you simply typed/pasted that text directly into Anki, since all fields are stored as HTML.

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For an existing file, have you tried find-replace?

A tip: the correct tag is just <br> – no space, no closing-tag slash.

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3

Thank you for your reply and help!

I tried wrapping the text in double quotes in my Google Sheet like this:

“Deoxy-ribo-nucleic acid.
Deoxyribonucleic acid.”

But after importing into Anki, it still shows up as a single line. Did I misunderstand the manual, or does Anki just not behave the way the manual says it should?

4

That’s what I mean about not having much luck with it. It depends on what the end-of-line character is in your spreadsheet, and that’s a bother to diagnose.

5

To check: have a look at the resultant CSV file in a normal text editor (e.g. Notepad, xEd). Can you see the broken line?

You should not personally need to place the double-quotation marks around the cell. The spreadsheet program should do that for you. Is there an option to configure Google Sheets on export (to CSV)?

Google Sheets only offers a few bits of functionality compared to more complete spreadsheet programs such as LibreOffice Calc and Microsoft Excel. Use LibreOffice Calc (free!); it produces a very honest CSV. i.e. true to the data and the standard.

Otherwise, just add the <br>; you only need to do a Search-and-Replace. I gave up the fight years ago; now I have HTML in most of my decks. It is just much easier to format, add colour, fonts, etc.

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6

Thank you for your advice!

I checked the raw text file, and it looks like the double quotation marks are still there.
45345345

I’m considering switching to using <br> and HTML formatting instead.

It just feels a bit unusual, since I’ve never used it that way before.

7

If you really are hesitant about using HTML, try installing LibreOffice and using it to create your CSV.

I use it several times a day to create or update my decks and it works fine, including texts in other languages (Latin, French, German, Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, Esperanto, …).

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8

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