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Bug
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Resolution: Fixed
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Low
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14
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Severity 3 - Minor
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1
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NOTE: This bug report is for JIRA Cloud. Using JIRA Server? See the corresponding bug report.
Summary
The documentation for New line in CSV external import in JIRA doesn't work
Steps to Reproduce
- Create and save a CSV file as per the documentation Importing Data From CSV
Summary, Description, Status "Login fails", "This is on a new line", Open
- Do a CSV import in JIRA using the External Import in JIRA
- Select "Map Value" option for the field with multiple lines
Expected Results
Issue created to have multiple line in it's Description field.
Actual Results
Imported issue is in one line rather than multiple lines.
"Login fails", "This is ona new line", Open
Workaround
Option 1:
- As mentioned in "this comment" :
don't hit 'Map Value'. Newlines import fine if you do not select 'Map Value' for that field.
Option 2:
It is possible to create newlines by using:
\\
at the beginning of each line as per the example below:
Summary,Type,Description,Status "next csv new line test","Bug","Atlassian \\ Testing Issue \\ Acceptance Criteria \\ - Line 1 \\ - Line 2 \\ - Line 3 \\ - Line 4",To Do
However, this workaround creates another issue with the exported field as mentioned in this bug ticket: JRA-46364
- is related to
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- Gathering Impact
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- links to
[JRACLOUD-46365] New line in CSV external import in JIRA doesn't work
Jira recognises newline in the description field, as long as the format in CSV that is being imported from is correct. The approach here is either one of the 2 listed below:
- Don't hit 'map value' for description. As long as the format you desire is present in your CSV file, Jira retains that same format
- If the formatting of description field in your CSV is not correct, you can change the format of each description row by clicking 'map value' and formatting each row individually. Jira in this case correctly assumes that formatting in your CSV is not proper and hence gives you option to format each row individually(format that was present in CSV won't be retained). You can easily format it by adding
\\
wherever you want a new line to start from. This is make sure Jira formats new lines in the description of the issue.
This card says that the Workaround 2 creates another issue https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-65671 however that issue has been fixed
If Jira is a modern tool the import should have the possibility to import richttext or HTML Tags. Too bad its missing this feature with the result that the text in issues becomes unreadable because of tags. Hope something will e done about this.
(severity = high when keeping history from previous migrated tool)
Just to confirm the workaround shared on other issues – Just don't hit 'Map Value'. Newlines import fine if you do not select 'Map Value' for that field.
This should be higher than "low" priority. It is basic functionality. I had to manually edit 130 descriptions after import. If I was importing 1000 tickets I would really be hating Jira right now. Competitors don't have this problem.
I am also curious about updates. Can the documentation at least be fixed to reflect reality and the workaround above? Or is the method described in the documentation actually working for people? It is certainly not working for me and I've tried different variations of it. Moreover, if you have lists in your multi-line field (e.g. because you imported a multi-line "Description" field from another Jira project), the workaround of using:
\\
for newlines does not work, as lists are not parsed and pretty-printed — Jira just displays the raw markup.
Are there any updates yet?
This has been open for a while, would be nice if it got fixed. This just makes the import less handy than it could be when you have a lot of description, every imported issue has to be checked again for formatting because lists end up on one line, making the whole thing hard to read.
Wow this sucks big time. I have tons of descriptions to import and they all come across as one big string.
Closing this ticket since it's technically not a bug(please refer the above comment). Please feel free to reopen this if you are not able to format it even after following the steps mentioned in the previous comment