“Replacing” text in a Form

[Bucky Edgett]

Dear Friends,

Just finished creating a new Form by exporting CSV from form Ephemera, and importing records from resulting CSV. Something weird happened and I can’t seem to fix it.

Every double quote in the Notes field has been changed to ‚Äú. Every word that is a contraction using an apostrophe has ‚Äô substituted for the apostrophe. (Don’t > Don‚Äôt.) There may be other such substitutions, so these two are examples. The CSV file has correct punctuation, but

Have tried to use the Advanced Find and Replacement, with disastrous results: deleting multiple records!

I am very new to Tap Forms, but had experience with FileMaker Pro. Until upgrading my operating system broke my FMP. Wouldn’t open my old “legacy files” unless I spent $500 for a newer version. Blah. Hence Tap Forms Pro, at which I am a babe in the woods.! Any advice would be appreciated.

Yours,
Bucky

[Brendan]

Hi Bucky,

This is due to a file encoding mismatch between the CSV file and the File Encoding setting on the Import Records screen.

You should match them up.

I generally use BBEdit to discover what the File Encoding of a CSV file is. It does a great job of telling me what the proper encoding is.

But if you don’t have that, then trial and error can work too.

It’s possible the file was encoded using UTF-8 or maybe MacOS Roman or Windows Latin 1.

Setting Tap Forms to use one of these file encodings on the Import Records screen will solve this problem. So try importing again. Start with UTF-8 and if that doesn’t work, try MacOS Roman. And if that doesn’t work, try Windows Latin 1.

As for Tap Forms deleting records, I don’t know how that’s possible as I don’t issue a delete command anywhere in my code to do the find and replace. That’s very strange.

Thanks,

Brendan

[Bucky Edgett]

Dear Brendan

I imported 352 records from the original CSV file. I have deleted all but 28 of them to create the new Form. And, made changes and added new text to the new Investments Form.

Are you telling me that I now have to START ALL OVER AGAIN, creating a new Form, and trying to save the changes I made, and trying to use BBEdit to identify what encoding your program might or might not have made, because your program could not by itself identify the encoding I would need to import the records without the “Mismatch” between export and import?

Yours
Bucky

P.S. I have BBEdit, but it doesn’t seem to be able to easily tell me what the file encoding of my CSV is.

[Bucky Edgett]

Dear Brendan,

Is it not possible to use “Find and replace” to change all instances in my notes field, of, for instance, ‚Äú to ” ?

There are a few more encoding errors I’d like to correct without having to go through the Byzantine complications of re-importing 352 records, of which I want only 28 of to be in the new form. Thanks for your advice!

Yours,
Bucky

[Brendan]

If you send me the CSV file I can tell you what the file encoding is that will import properly into Tap Forms.

You should be able to do the find and replace though. I just tested it and it did work for me to replace Äú with a ".

[Author]

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