JIRA CSV Importer - Carriage Return

[Vivian Escalante]

My scenario: 

1. Exporting as a CSV from Google Sheets

2. The JIRA field would be "Onsite Dates" and I want the field to display multiple lines like below. 

 

3. I did alt + enter to add a new line, but when I export it as a CSV and upload it to the CSV importer the new line is lost, so it displays "Start Dates Flr 5: 11/10-11/17 Flr 6: 11/17-11/28" and I need it to display in 3 lines. 

Anyone know how to resolve this? Thanks. 

[Peter Del Sordo]

Our team discovered that unchecking the "Map field value" box during the third step of the external csv import process, will preserve formatting for any text field that contains special formatting or carriage returns (e.g.-Acceptance Criteria, Descriptions, and Comments).  We tested this work-around for numerous import scenarios and it works every time!

[Ирина Герасименко]

It works! Thank you very much!

[Shaun Butler]

Amazing - this works! Assume this is a bug?

[Wiese_ Scott]

Thank you Thank you Thank you! This saved me a bunch of time.  Worked for me also. 

[teknetica]

Workaround worked for me April 2025. Is this defect really over 6 years old?

[Andy Heinzer]

Hi Vivian,

Sorry to hear that you have encountered this problem with Jira, I believe that this scenario is actually documented as a bug within Jira in https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRASERVER-46365

While that bug itself does list a work-around for having new lines appear when imported to Jira:

Workaround

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

There also exist other possible alternatives here.  For example the thread over in https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/How-can-I-import-from-CSV-with-carriage-return-and-line-feed-in/qaq-p/322723 explains through the use of a 3rd party add-on to Jira such as the Jira Command line interface, it is possible to import those CSV files as is without any additional modification to that existing file.

I hope this helps,

Andy

[Mac_Calma]

Hi @Andy Heinzer,

"\\" doesn't work for me. It is imported as is together with the ".