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# Export stories or story forms

On this page you can export your stories or story forms to CSV files for use outside NarraFirma.

## What to do here

Choose a story collection, then click "Export story form" or "Export story collection."

## Connections to other pages

Within NarraFirma, this page has no impact on any other page. Of course, if you export your story form or collection to a CSV file, then make changes within NarraFirma, the CSV file will no longer match. But that's obvious.

## Frequently-asked questions

### I want to match up my exported stories to the stories in NarraFirma, but there is no "index" number in the exported file.

The order in which the stories are exported matches the "index" number of each story in NarraFirma (for that story collection). So in your exported CSV file, if you add a spreadsheet column with an ascending index (starting at 1 for the first story), those numbers will match the story index numbers in NarraFirma.

### What's the difference between the two "Export story form" buttons?

Export story form (for import to NarraFirma). When you export stories from NarraFirma, it writes the stories in its own preferred format. (Specifically, it prefers the "Single choice" and "Multi-choice multi-column texts" options, and it uses scale ranges of 0-100.) This button saves your story form with NarraFirma's preferred import options. You can use that file to import a CSV story file you exported from NarraFirma.

Export story form (for import to other software). If you imported your story data to NarraFirma from a different survey system, you specified import options that helped NarraFirma read the foreign data file. NarraFirma has preserved this information in its fields, which you can see in the NarraFirma interface. This button saves your story form with those original import options intact. You can use that file to import the same foreign data file into another NarraFirma project.

### When I try to read my stories (or story form) in Excel, it doesn't look right.

Excel doesn't convert CSV files to its format very well when you open them directly. To open a CSV file correctly in Excel, create an empty spreadsheet, then choose Data - Get External Data - Import Text File. When asked what delimiter to use (to distinguish one column from the next), choose "comma" (or whatever delimiter you asked NarraFirma to use). You may need to try a few different options for the "Text qualifier" and "Text encoding" settings.