# Customizing Export Columns

Source: PaperSurvey.io Help Center
URL: https://www.papersurvey.io/help/exporting-data/article/customizing-export-columns

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When exporting survey data, you can control which columns are included, their order, and their names. This saves time by producing exports that are ready to use without additional editing.

## Enabling column customization

[Image: Export settings]

To customize which columns appear in your export, you first need to enable the feature:

1. Open your survey and go to the **Responses** tab
2. Click the **Export** button
3. Enable the **Customize column order and names** toggle
4. The column configuration panel will appear

Column customization is available for the Excel, CSV, SPSS, SAS, and Stata file types.

## Selecting columns

Once customization is enabled, you can choose which questions and metadata fields to include:

1. Review the available columns and selected columns
2. Move columns between the "Available Columns" and "To be exported" lists
3. Click **Download**

Only the selected columns will appear in the downloaded file.

## Reordering columns

With column customization enabled, drag and drop columns to change their order. The exported file will follow the order you set, so you can arrange columns to match your analysis workflow or reporting template.

## Renaming columns

You can set custom column headers that will appear in the exported file instead of the default question titles. To rename a column, click its name in the "To be exported" list and type the new name. This is useful when:

- Question titles are too long for spreadsheet columns
- You need specific column names to match an existing data model
- You want abbreviated headers for easier data manipulation

You can also set a permanent Column Header for each question via Additional Settings on the Setup page, which applies to all export formats.

## Saving column presets

Your column configuration is saved per survey, so you do not need to reconfigure it each time you export. If you regularly export with the same settings, your preferences will be remembered.

## Default columns

By default, exports include all questions in the survey along with standard metadata fields such as the entry ID, page count, upload date, a link to the response, notes, source filenames, print batch, and tags. Surveys with web surveys enabled also include a collection method column (paper or web), and graded quiz surveys include a total score column.

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Need more? The complete PaperSurvey.io help center and blog is available as a single document at https://www.papersurvey.io/llms-full.txt.