Location of essay text data

[jarvis24]

[edited from support email]
I am using the essay datatype for a few of the questions within an experiment. I see that MediaLab automatically generates a separate file for each of these variables. Why? When I open the excel (csv) file those responses are not in there. Do I have to manually cut and paste them in there or is there some magic that I am unaware of.

[jarvis24]

No magic, sorry. Essay data are all stored externally in seperate files in order to avoid clogging up the primary data files (e.g., since each essay can contain up to 65,000 characters). If you want open ended data that can be stored within the .csv files, you could try using the fill-in-the-blank item type instead. You can even size the input area and define the number of input lines to mimick an essay question (see guide).
-Blair