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Saving and Loading
A save is Candy Dialogue Creator's working file: the whole Dialogue as you are writing it. It isn't the file your game reads. To deliver the Dialogue to your game, export it (see Exporting). There are three kinds of saves: manual saves you write yourself, auto saves written on a timer, and quick saves written with a key. The File Menu
ItemShortcutWhat it does
New DialogueCtrl+NCloses the Dialogue and starts an empty one, after asking.
Load Dialogue...Ctrl+OOpens a save file.
SaveCtrl+SSaves to the current save.
Save As...Ctrl+Shift+SAsks for a file, then saves to it.
Save IncrementalCtrl+Alt+SSaves to a new file beside the current save, stamped with the date and time.
The shortcuts can be changed in Settings > Shortcuts > General. Manual Saves The current save is the manual save you loaded or wrote last. Save writes to it. When there is none, as in a new Dialogue, Save asks for a file like Save As.... A loaded file only becomes the current save when it is a manual save inside the manual saves folder. An auto save, a quick save or a file from elsewhere is never overwritten by Save: saving then asks for a file. Incremental Saves An incremental save preserves the previous file and writes a new one beside it, with the date and time in its name:
Chapter 1.txt Chapter 1_〔D-2026-09-20_T-08-01-00〕.txt
Save Incremental writes one on demand. For every Save to be incremental, set Save method to Incremental in Settings > General > Save/Load. Auto Saves Candy Dialogue Creator writes an auto save at a regular interval, every 60 seconds by default, when the Dialogue changed since the last auto save. Auto saves rotate: once there are as many as the Maximum files setting allows (5 by default), the oldest is replaced. They are named after their slot and the time they were written, such as Auto_Save_3_D-2026-09-20_T-08-01-00.txt. To recover unsaved work, load the most recent auto save with File > Load Dialogue..., then save it under a name of your own. Quick Saves
  • F5 writes a quick save, without asking anything.
  • F9 loads the most recent quick save, after asking.
Quick saves rotate like auto saves. Write one before an edit you may want to revert. Folders Unless other folders are set, saves are written to the profile's own folder, inside Candy Dialogue Creator's user folder (see Installation):
Users/<user>/<profile>/Saves/Manual_Saves Users/<user>/<profile>/Saves/Auto_Saves Users/<user>/<profile>/Saves/Quick_Saves
The folders, the auto save frequency and the number of files retained are set in Settings > General > Save/Load. See Save and Load. Loading File > Load Dialogue... replaces the open Dialogue with the one in the file. Anything not saved is lost, and the undo history is cleared.
  • A file made for Candy Dialogue Engine 1.1 isn't loaded: Candy Dialogue Creator asks you to convert it first (see Converting 1.1 Files).
  • A save written with other symbols than the profile's isn't loaded as it is: Candy Dialogue Creator asks to update its symbols first (see Updating Symbols).
  • The names of the file's Variations are checked as it loads. If some are broken, a report opens (see Variations).
  • Languages and tags the Dialogue uses that the profile doesn't have yet are added to the profile.
Contents of a Save A save contains the Dialogue: every Conversation, Block and Line, with all their data, and the symbols its Lines are written with. It doesn't contain:
  • Presets, which are saved on their own (see Presets).
  • Settings and layouts, which belong to the profile.
When the profile's symbols changed since it opened, every save but an auto save first asks to update the Dialogue's symbols. See Updating Symbols.