Keeping SDScribe™ up-to-date

Program users have been asking us what regulatory lists are included in SDScribe™, and how recently these lists have been updated.

The answers depend to some extent on when you first started using SDScribe™, and whether you elected to run certain imports that were offered when starting up newer versions of the program. You also could have run some of these imports on your own, at a time of your choosing.

The easiest way to check the status of your data file is to go to the Help menu, and select “About SDScribe™…” When the “About” dialog appears, click on the second (“Environment”) tab, and you should see the an information display similar to the following,

“About SDScribe…” dialog, Environment tab.

Under the “Data file” heading, the program indicates that the accompanying data file originated before July of 2023, which means it is not stamped with a starting date. Data files downloaded as starter data after July of 2023 should have an actual date/month/year stamp in this location.

The next heading is “Most recent imports/updates”. This section should inform you on which regulatory lists have been imported, and when. Scrolling the display down a bit, we can see an alphabetized list,

“About SDScribe…” dialog, Environment tab, scrolling down to the most recent imports.

So for California’s Proposition 65 list of chemicals, we can see that the last update was imported on September 10, 2023. The name of the file imported was “CA_p65_list_r20230421.csv”, where the “r20230421” portion means that the State of California posted or published the data on April 21, 2023.

In contrast, the file from Safe Work Australia for exposure limits does not have a prefix of “r” in its name, “AU_SafeWork_expos_limits_20230814.csv”. The absence of the “r” indicates that we obtained the information on that date (August 14, 2023), rather than the agency posting or publishing it on that date. This type of date stamp generally occurs when the agency’s posting/publishing date is not readily available.

Scrolling down a bit further gets us to the bottom of the list, where we can see the following,

“About SDScribe…” dialog, Environment tab, scrolling to the bottom of the most recent imports.

Import file location and disposition

Once SDScribe™ has imported a regulatory file, it becomes part of the data file (SDScribe.4dd), and its content typically resides in the Substances section of the program.

The import file on disk that supplied the information typically remains in place, in the folder “C:\Hazard_Solutions\Database\Resources\Imports\”. Files of this sort grow stale as they are replaced by newer updates, however, and we may remove them in newer versions of the SDScribe™ full installation. (We don’t remove them from your hard disk, however, when you continue to use the same SDScribe.4dd file)

Import files are typically not incremental; that is, each updated version of the data contains the full list of chemicals relevant to the agency or rule, not just the ones that have been added.

Another thing that can happen with import files of this nature is that the agency may decide to split them, merge them, or simply stop using them. In these cases, we may stop offering an import, instead replacing it with a newer item.

Checking for available imports

To determine if you have missed any imports to your data file, you can check at File (menu) -> Imports-exports and utilities, and then click on the Review imports… button. The program should then display a list of available imports,

List of available imports, accessed from File (menu) -> Imports-exports and utilities -> Review imports (button).

You can select individual imports (rows) that you wish to run, or click into the “Select” header to check-mark all rows for importing. If you want to review the information in more detail for a particular import, double-click on the corresponding row.

Detail display for an item (row) in the list of available imports. To return to the list, click on the Back button.

Import file formats

While the data in these import files usually comes from the regulatory agency managing it, more often than not we have edited it to remove partial headers, merged cells, footnotes, and other structures that are not well-suited to machine reading. We may also encode the file (e.g., UTF-8 or UTF-16) to preserve special characters that would be lost in a plain-text import file.

Consequently, we do not recommend that you download the data directly from the regulatory agency, and then try to import it into SDScribe™. There are a few exceptions, such as creating your own custom translation group (CTG), where we provide you with a file specification or generate a file for you to use.

Latest import files

As of today (3.6.2025) the following import files are the most recent. Some will change with new program releases, since they can be bundled with the new release.

Because some chemical regulatory listings change frequently, you should always verify chemical listings by going to the web site for the source agency. SDScribe™ includes a “[R]esearch” button on the SDS entry form and on the Substance entry form for this purpose.

As noted earlier, the dates embedded in the file names represent either the date of release by the agency (“r” prefix) or the date on which we were able to obtain the data.

  1. Australian exposure limits: AU_SafeWork_expos_limits_20230814.csv

  2. California Prop. 65 chemicals: CA_p65_list_r20231229.csv

  3. Canada Domestic Substances List: CAN_DSL_r20240909.csv

  4. Canada Non-Domestic Substances List: CAN_NDSL_r20240909.csv

  5. EU cosmetics allowed colorants list: EU_COSING_colorant_r20230725.csv

  6. EU cosmetics allowed preservatives list: EU_COSING_preserv_r20230725.csv

  7. EU cosmetics allowed UV filters list: EU_COSING_UV_filters_r20230725.csv

  8. EU cosmetics prohibited substances list: EU_COSING_prohib_r20230725.csv

  9. EU cosmetics restricted substances list: EU_COSING_restrict_r20230725.csv

  10. EU harmonised substances list (Annex VI): EU_harmonised_chems_ATP_20_20240327.txt

  11. EU SVHC Candidate list: EU_SVHC_r20240123.csv

  12. EU/OSHA exposure limits (IOELVs): EU_OSHA_expos_limits_r20230825.csv

  13. Massachusetts Right To Know - Substance List (105 CMR 670): MA_RTK_list_r20160909.csv

  14. Massachusetts Toxic Use Reduction Act (TURA): MA_TURA_chemicals_revJun_2023.csv

  15. Multi-language phrases (Keminaco): Keminaco_codesML20200802_UTF16.txt

  16. New Jersey Right-to-Know List: NJ_RTK_list_r2010_20231108.csv

  17. Pennsylvania Right-to-Know List: PA_RTK_list_r20230826.csv

  18. US DOT hazardous materials table: US_DOT_hazmat_tbl_20230728.csv

  19. US EPA PFAS master chemicals list (EPA has discontinued this list, now broken into two separate lists, below): US_EPA_PFAS_master_20240414.csv

  20. US EPA PFAS structured chemicals list: US_EPA_PFAS_structV5_r202208.csv

  21. US EPA PFAS unstructured ("dev") chemicals list: US_EPA_PFAS_dev3_r20240323.csv

  22. US EPA TSCA confidential inventory: US_EPA_TSCA_cnfdntl_r052024.csv

  23. US EPA TSCA public inventory: US_EPA_TSCA_public_r052024.csv

  24. US OSHA Table Z-1 (annotated) exposure limits: US_OSHA_tbl_z1_annot_20230804.txt

  25. WGK - Rigoletto (water hazard class): WGK_tabelle_r20240419_20240505.csv


[rev. 3.6.2025]