CSF

Ra2.csf redirects here. If the part about the file itself grows large enough, move it there.

If you're looking for the technical details on the CSF file format, see CSF File Format instead.

CSF files contain all the ingame texts of RA2 (ra2.csf) and YR (ra2md.csf). They can be edited either with XCC String Table Editor (by Olaf van der Spek) or with RA2StrEdit (by TheMatze). They can be loaded from outside a MIX file much like .ini files, if they are named stringtablexx.csf (where xx is a number from 01 to 99).

Editing CSF files in XCC String Table Editor

Select the game

Type in the string name

Add the string content

Let's say you are following a tutorial for adding a new unit... and the tutorial tells you to "add an entry Name:NewTank to the CSF file and set it to 'My New Tank'".

• Open XCC Mixer.
• Launch > String Table Editor > select the game.
• In the left panel, select the "NAME" section.
  • You can actually select any section you wish, it will still get saved properly.
• Click "Insert" at the bottom.
• Type in Name:NewTank and hit Enter.
  • These strings are case-insensitive, you can type in naME:NEWTANk and it would still work.
• Double click on the new entry.
  • Alternatively, click on it and hit "Edit" at the bottom, your choice.
• Type in My New Tank in the big box, and leave the bottom box empty.
  • These strings are case-sensitive, and the text you type in here will be displayed in the same case as you entered it.
• Hit "OK".
• Hit "OK" at the bottom.

There you go, now your tank will be named "My New Tank" when you move your mouse over it. (This doesn't affect the cameo.)

Editing CSF files in RA2StrEdit

Open the file	The open file
Insert a string	Enter its name
Enter its content	Hit "Save"
	Confirm the flags

Same thing as above, for RA2StrEdit.

• Open RA2StrEdit.
• File > Open > browse to the folder where you left your ra2(md).csf, select it, and click "open".
• Edit > Insert string.
• In the "String ID" field, enter your string's ID (Name:NewTank for this example).
• Hit "OK".
• Now you have to scroll the string list on the left down until you see your newly added string; you can press it's first letter to jump near it (so, in this example, select any string, press "n", and scroll down until you see Name:NewTank).
• Make sure you have your string selected.
• Enter your tank's name in the big box labeled "Content" to the right ("My New Tank", in this example).
• File > Save.
• I have never heard of a case where the flags were set wrong, so unless you created a new .csf, just hit "OK".
  • If you did create a new .csf, make sure the language flag is set correctly.

Once you hit OK, your file is saved. You're done.

Editing CSF files in Ra2CsfToolsGUI

• Open Ra2CsfToolsGUI available at https://github.com/SadPencil/Ra2CsfToolsGUI/releases.
• Drag & drop the ra2.csf file to the program window.
• Click "Save as an .ini file..." button to save the ra2.csf file as an ini file, for example, ra2.csf.ini.
• Edit the ini file with text editors. For example, to set up a label "theme:madrap" with content "Hell March", write an ini section as below.

[theme:madrap]
Value=Hell March

• After finishing editing, drag & drop the ini file back to the program window.
• Click "Save as a .csf file..." button to save the new csf file.