Troubleshooting CSV Export Issues in Formidable Forms: Encoding, Formatting, and Column Problems

Exporting form entries to a CSV file is a powerful feature for data analysis, but it can sometimes lead to frustrating issues with character encoding, text formatting, and unwanted columns. This guide covers the most common CSV export problems reported by users of the 'Formidable Forms – Contact Form Plugin, Survey, Quiz, Payment, Calculator Form & Custom Form Builder' and provides practical solutions to resolve them.

Common CSV Export Issues and Their Causes

Based on community reports, the primary challenges with CSV exports fall into three categories:

• Character Encoding Problems: Special characters, such as accented letters (e.g., ă, ș, ț, î, â) or non-Latin scripts (e.g., Persian, Arabic), may appear as garbled text (like Ÿ) or question marks in the exported file. This is almost always caused by a mismatch in character encoding between the database, the CSV file, and the program (like Excel) used to open it.
• Paragraph Field Formatting: When a Paragraph field contains line breaks (created by pressing the 'Enter' key), the text can become split across multiple rows and columns when the CSV is opened in Excel. This happens because Excel interprets line breaks as the start of a new row.
• Unwanted Columns: The default CSV export includes several system columns (e.g., 'id', 'ip', 'user_id', 'created_at'). While a filter exists to remove them, some users report that comment-related columns can be stubborn and difficult to unset.

Solutions and Workarounds

1. Fixing Character Encoding for UTF-8 Support

If your exported data contains garbled special characters, the issue is likely related to UTF-8 encoding. While the 'Formidable Forms' plugin attempts to export in UTF-8 by default, the way you open the file can override this.

Recommended Solution:

1. Do not open the CSV file directly in Excel. This is the most common cause of encoding problems.
2. Instead, import the CSV into Excel using its data import tool. This allows you to explicitly define the file's encoding.
   1. Open a blank Excel workbook.
   2. Go to the Data tab and select From Text/CSV.
   3. Navigate to and select your exported CSV file.
   4. In the preview window, ensure the File Origin dropdown is set to 65001: Unicode (UTF-8).
   5. Click Load to import the data with the correct encoding.
3. As an alternative, you can open the raw CSV file in a plain text editor like Notepad or VS Code. If the characters appear correctly there, it confirms the encoding issue is with Excel, not the Formidable Forms export.

Code-Based Approach: Some users have tried using the frm_csv_format filter hook to force UTF-8 encoding. The effectiveness of this hook can vary depending on the server environment.

add_filter('frm_csv_format', 'set_frm_csv_format');
function set_frm_csv_format(){
  return 'utf-8';
}

2. Handling Paragraph Fields with Line Breaks

To prevent text from Paragraph fields from breaking your spreadsheet structure, you need to ensure the line breaks are handled properly during the import process into Excel.

Recommended Solution:

1. When importing the CSV using Excel's Data tool (as described above), you can adjust how line breaks are treated.
2. During the import wizard, you can specify text qualifiers. Ensuring text is wrapped in quotes can help Excel treat the entire cell content, including internal line breaks, as a single unit.

3. Removing Unwanted Columns from the Export

The frm_csv_columns filter allows you to programmatically remove columns from the CSV export. The code snippet below is a robust example based on community-provided code that targets a specific form (ID: 5) and removes numerous system columns, including the sometimes problematic comment columns.

add_filter( 'frm_csv_columns', 'remove_id_column', 10, 2 );
function remove_id_column( $headings, $form_id ) {
    // Only apply to form with ID 5
    if ( $form_id == 5 ) {
        // System columns to remove
        unset( $headings['created_at'] );
        unset( $headings['updated_at'] );
        unset( $headings['user_id'] );
        unset( $headings['updated_by'] );
        unset( $headings['is_draft'] );
        unset( $headings['ip'] );
        unset( $headings['id'] );
        unset( $headings['item_key'] );

        // Comment Columns
        unset( $headings['comment'] );
        unset( $headings['comment_user_id'] );
        unset( $headings['comment_created_at'] );
    }
    return $headings;
}

Note: If certain columns persist after using this filter, it may be due to the specific way they are registered in the plugin's code. For complex issues beyond the scope of this guide, users often find detailed assistance in the plugin's dedicated helpdesk.

Conclusion

Most CSV export issues stem from how spreadsheet applications interpret the raw data file. By using the import功能 of Excel instead of directly opening the file, you can control the encoding and formatting, resolving most problems with special characters and paragraph fields. For advanced customization, the frm_csv_columns filter provides powerful control over which data is included in your exports.