My File Won't Import, or My Cards Look Wrong
This is the most common thing people write in about, and it’s almost always one of the issues below. Work through them in order.
“I tapped my file and nothing happened”
SpeakerView needs a plain text file it can read as standard text (UTF-8). If nothing happens after you select a file:
- Check the file extension. It must end in
.txt. If it ends in.docx,.rtf,.pages, or.pdf, SpeakerView cannot read it — even if you rename the file to end in.txt, the file’s internal format won’t be plain text and it still won’t import correctly. - Re-save it as plain text from the original app.
- TextEdit (Mac): Format menu → Make Plain Text, then save.
- Microsoft Word: File → Save As → choose Plain Text (.txt) as the format.
- Pages: File → Export To → Plain Text.
- Notes app (iPhone/Mac): Notes doesn’t export to
.txtdirectly — copy the text into a plain-text editor app and save from there.
- Try the file picker’s other locations. If your file is in an app like Google Drive or Dropbox, make sure that app is signed in and the file has finished syncing (look for a cloud/download icon next to it in the Files app — tap it to force a download if needed).
“My speech imported, but it’s all one giant card” (or the cards are split in the wrong places)
This means SpeakerView didn’t recognize your --- separator lines. The separator has to match an exact pattern:
- It must be a line by itself — nothing else on that line, including trailing spaces.
- It must be exactly three dashes:
--- - It needs a blank line directly above and below it.
Common mistakes that will silently break the split:
| What you typed | Why it fails |
|---|---|
---- or -- | Wrong number of dashes |
— (an em-dash, often auto-inserted by Word or Pages) | Not the same character as a hyphen-dash |
--- with a trailing space after it | The line isn’t exactly three dashes |
--- with no blank line before/after | The separator needs to stand alone in its own paragraph |
How to fix it: Open your file in a plain-text editor (not Word — word processors often “helpfully” autocorrect three dashes into a long dash). Delete the existing separator lines and retype --- fresh on an otherwise-empty line, with a blank line above and below. Full formatting rules: Formatting Your Speech File.
“Some of my paragraph breaks are missing” or “my card looks jumbled”
Within a card, a blank line marks a paragraph break. If your original document used single line breaks (no blank line between paragraphs) — common when text is pasted in from a source that wraps lines automatically — SpeakerView will treat that whole block as one paragraph. Add an actual blank line between paragraphs in your .txt file to fix this.
“I imported a new file and my old speech / translation disappeared”
This is expected behavior, not a bug. SpeakerView holds one speech at a time — importing a new file always replaces the current cards, and clears any translation, since a translation belongs to the specific speech it was created from. Import your final draft last.
Still stuck?
If you’ve checked all of the above and your file still won’t import correctly, reach out through our support page — it helps a lot if you can describe (or paste a snippet of) how your separator lines are formatted.