NOTE / 001 / DATA

A clean CSV is
a good beginning.

A CSV is a plain-text table. That simplicity makes it easy to move between tools, but it also means a few conventions do a lot of work.

One row of headers, then observations

Put your column names in the first row. Each row after that should describe one observation, such as a month, a category, or a measurement. Use short, specific names. "Downloads" is more useful than "Value 2." Keep units consistent and explain them in the chart title if needed.

Month,Visits,Downloads
Jan,1840,420
Feb,2260,590
Mar,2100,540

MetricDraft uses the first non-empty record as the header. Completely blank rows are ignored. Blank header cells become "Column 1," "Column 2," and so on, and repeated names get a numeric suffix. It is still better to give every column its own meaningful name.

Understand the separator

Comma-separated files use a comma between fields. A file exported from another spreadsheet may use semicolons or tabs instead. The studio detects the most common separator in the first record, outside quotation marks. If the preview looks wrong, choose the separator explicitly.

A row can contain fewer fields than the header; its missing cells are treated as empty. A row with more fields than the header is rejected, because that usually indicates a separator or quoting error.

Quotes keep a field together

A comma inside a label is still a comma. Wrap the entire field in double quotes so it stays in one column. Inside a quoted field, write two double quotes to represent one literal double quote. Quoted fields can also contain line breaks.

Project,Hours
"Design, first pass",12
"The ""small"" revision",4

Do not add stray text after a closing quote. If the studio reports a quote error, check the row in a text editor or export the file again from the original spreadsheet.

Numbers should be plain numbers

Use 1234.5 rather than 1,234.5, $1234.50, or 12%. A decimal point, optional sign, and scientific notation are supported. Units belong in a column header or explanatory label. Dates are labels, not automatically interpreted time values.

Empty and non-numeric cells are omitted from the chosen value series. The studio reports how many rows were omitted. A missing value is different from zero: only write zero if that is what was measured.

Keep the first draft manageable

The studio accepts files up to 2 MB, 10,000 data rows, and 50 columns. Charts and exports show at most the first 120 valid numeric observations. To focus on a different interval or category group, filter your source table before exporting it.