How to Import Gospel Library Notes to Scripture Notes

Jul 08
Import Gospel Library Notes to Scripture Notes

I am pleased to announce our new import routine to bring in notes from Gospel Library (digital scriptures from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) to Scripture Notes.

The process is quick and easy. Instructions are below including limitations on what can be imported.

Follow the simple directions. You get one opportunity to import notes. Doing it a second time will double up your notes which we cannot undo! Use this feature at your own risk.

Summary

What We Can Import

  • Verse notes with titles
  • Verse notes without titles
  • Notes in notebooks not tied to a verse along with their hyperlinks

What We Can’t Import (this is largely due to the limited data the church allows to be exported)

  • Notebooks as a whole (IE. bringing all the notes for a notebook together)
  • Highlighting/markup
  • Tags
  • Hyperlinks to other verses or content on the church website (links you included as a text string will work, just not encoded links)
  • Study Sets

What We Create in Scripture Notes

  • All notes tied to a verse will go to verse notes
  • All individual notes not tied to a verse are imported as a Collection Note with a tag of “Gospel Library Import”

Examples of what will or will not import (Instructions follow)

This illustrates a verse note without a title. It has been given a tag of “Creation,” and added to a notebook with the title “Creation.”

The note will import to Isaiah 40:28 but the tag and notebook are dropped because they are not included in the export file from the church.

Isaiah 40 verse and note

This shows a verse note with a title of “Creating heaven” and a linked verse to Moses 2:1. The note and title will import to Scripture Notes but not the linked to verse in Moses 2:1.

Genesis 1 verse and note

Study Sets will not import because they are not part of the church export file.

No note, no import

This is a notebook. A notebook can contain many notes and verses. Some notes are tied to verses while others are solely topical to the notebook and not tied to a verse. Notebooks as a whole will not import. Individual notes like the one shown here will import as a collection note, as shown below it.

 

Creation notebook 1

He is the import of this creation notebook. The date of the note will be put into the creation date field for the collection note. The date will be included in the master note text if you check the box to include dates. It will be given a tag of “Gospel Library Import” so if you have lots of these, you can quickly find them in your tag tree and work on them individually later. By removing the Gospel Library Import tag in the collection note, and putting real tags in, you will build out your own tag tree and this list will get smaller until it disappears.

Creation Notebook Imported

Verses in a notebook that have a note attached to the verse will have those notes imported to verse notes like this one for Isaiah 40:28.

 

Creation notebook 2

 

Verses included in a notebook that have no note will not be imported at all like this one for Genesis 1:1 which only has highlighting.

 

Creation notebook 3

Step-by-Step Instructions

1) Click Account Settings in your Dashboard

Click account settings

Then scroll down to the Import section. You are reading the instructions so no need to click “HERE” again.

 

Account Settings Import Notes Interface

2a) Download your notes from your Gospel Library account.

Click this link: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/notes (the church website will open in a new browser tab)

After signing into your account, click the download link on this page in the upper left area to export your notes. It will download a file named “csv.csv” (which stands for a Comma Separate Values file)

Export my notes

2b) Return to the Scripture Notes import panel and click the button in step 2 to find your “csv.csv” file (most likely in your download folder), click it, and click OK to select it.

Just so you know, the file looks like this. As you can see it’s very limited, but your notes and verse references are there and that’s what we import.

csv file example

3) Decision Time – To Date, or Not to Date

Now decide if you want to include the date of notes above the notes. Consider this image.

Import with or without date option

Some people like knowing when they made their notes, and others like myself, don’t care so much. I like to put things in the most relevant order to me when I make a new note so I rarely use dates in my verse notes field unless it totally pertains to the note I’m making, such as wanting to remember an actual date.

Regardless, if you don’t include dates, the notes (if you have more than 1 for a verse) will still import in a sorted manner to verse notes with most recent at the top under the assumption that more recent notes are most relevant or important to your understanding.

Caution: The date format is mm/dd/yyyy so if you are used to dd/mm/yyyy, you may not want to include the date.

If you want to import the dates of your notes, check the box on line 3.

4) Click the big friendly “Import Notes” button and let the magic begin.

Popup 1 – clicking continue will close all panes except your account settings. If for some reason your panes don’t close, don’t panic. When the import process is done, please close your panes and reopen them. It may be best to sign out and back in to ensure a clean start.

Import popup 1

 

Popup 2 – you will see the quantity of notes being imported. Estimate about 400/minute.

 

Import popup 2

Popup 3 – you are done

 

Import popup 3

Congratulations! Your journey to the light side is now complete. :)

 

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About the Author

Oak Norton - Just trying to share a love of the scriptures with others.

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