Questions tagged [csv]

Comma-separated values: a rudimentary plain-text spreadsheet. Also includes tab, space, semicolon or other-separated values.

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Easiest way to open CSV with commas in Excel

CSV files are automatically associated with Excel but when I open them, all the rows are basically in the first column, like this: It's probably because when Excel thinks "comma-separated values", it ...
Borek Bernard's user avatar
158 votes
5 answers
114k views

Is it possible to paste CSV formatted data into Excel 2007?

I want to copy and paste CSV formatted text into Excel 2007. Is there a way of doing this without saving it to a temporary file first? I'm sure in previous versions of Excel there was a way to ...
therefromhere's user avatar
135 votes
7 answers
119k views

How can I stop Excel from eating my delicious CSV files and excreting useless data?

I have a database which tracks sales of widgets by serial number. Users enter purchaser data and quantity, and scan each widget into a custom client program. They then finalize the order. This all ...
atroon's user avatar
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132 votes
6 answers
317k views

Formatting a comma-delimited CSV to force Excel to interpret value as a string

I've been searching around for a while trying to figure out how to output a CSV file in such a way to force Excel to interpret the values as a string and not try to convert them to numbers or dates. ...
Simon E.'s user avatar
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131 votes
9 answers
485k views

How to get Excel to interpret the comma as a default delimiter in CSV files?

I have a number of .csv files. Some of them are comma delimited, some are tab delimited (maybe they should be called .tsv ...) The csv extension gets associated with Excel when Excel is installed. ...
Szabolcs's user avatar
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124 votes
20 answers
545k views

How do you force excel to quote all columns of a CSV file?

Excel only places quotes around certain fields, how do I force excel to save a CSV file with quotes around every column?
Michael Shnitzer's user avatar
124 votes
5 answers
553k views

How to set character encoding when opening a CSV file in Excel?

Is it possible to set the default encoding for Excel (any version, e.g. 2010) when opening files like csv files (like you can in Open Office Calc)? I When I try to open a csv file encoded in Japanese ...
LozzerJP's user avatar
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120 votes
7 answers
213k views

How to open semicolon delimited CSV-files in US-version of Excel

When I double-click on a .csv file, it is opened in Excel. The csv-files have columns delimited with semicolons (not commas, but also a valid format). Using a German Windows/Excel setup, the opened ...
Holgerwa's user avatar
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65 votes
9 answers
380k views

How to force Excel to open CSV files with data arranged in columns

I generate a CSV file with an extension .csv in which every piece of data in one line is separated with a comma: 1,2,3,4 1,2,3,4 The file is sent via email and I want that when a customer opens it ...
Timofey's user avatar
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50 votes
3 answers
47k views

Lightweight CSV viewer for Mac? [closed]

I need to view (large) CSV files on my Mac. I could use something like OpenOffice, but unfortunately it's pretty big and slow. I'm wondering if there's a Mac equivalent of some of the Windows tools ...
Hay's user avatar
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48 votes
3 answers
77k views

Can I create an Anki deck from a .CSV file?

Can I convert my CSV file into an Anki deck? I can't find any options in the program.
Thalecress's user avatar
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47 votes
5 answers
51k views

What is the "sep=" metadata you can add to CSVs?

While trying to find out how to get CSVs to open correctly in Excel on a Spanish PC (belonging to a customer) I found many answers recommending using sep=, at the top of the file: Easiest way to open ...
Burhan Ali's user avatar
44 votes
3 answers
261k views

How do you change default delimiter in the Text Import in Excel?

I want to import a CSV file to Excel. The CSV file has comma separated data (go figure), but the delimiter in the Text Import Wizard is set to "Tab" by default. How can I change the default to "Comma" ...
Lars's user avatar
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41 votes
4 answers
69k views

Converting CSV to fixed-width in Notepad++?

Is there a way in Notepad++ to convert a comma-separated file to fixed width columns? This feature exists in UltraEdit and explained in Working with CSV files, but I am happy with my Notepad++, and I ...
ercan's user avatar
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36 votes
9 answers
200k views

How to export selected columns into csv file

I want to export specific number of columns from excel into .csv file. I have around 10 columns like lname, fname, phone, address, email and so on. What should I do to export only certain columns like ...
raul's user avatar
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34 votes
9 answers
43k views

How to join two CSV files?

Suppose you have one CSV file with 2 fields: ID and email. You have another file with 2 fields: email and name. How can you produce a file with all three fields joined on email?
crst53's user avatar
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33 votes
21 answers
48k views

Querying a CSV file

Does anyone know of a simple tool that will open up a CSV file and let you do basic, SQLesque queries on it? Like a graphical tool of sorts, one that is easy to use. I know I could write a small ...
J. Polfer's user avatar
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32 votes
6 answers
10k views

Why isn't there a delimiter character in ASCII?

My question is: Why is there no specific "delimiter" character? One that would be used for all types of delimiting. We have special characters for new line, print-settings, etc... Why do we ...
Dave's user avatar
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31 votes
6 answers
108k views

How to convert Excel file with multiple sheets to a set of CSV files?

I have an Excel file with 20 sheets on it. Is there a way to quickly convert the file into 20 CSV files - one for each sheet? I can do it manually of course, but I'll have to be processing these ...
AngryHacker's user avatar
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29 votes
8 answers
178k views

How do I stop Excel from converting value 0503E000 to 5.03E+02 automatically?

Excel converting value 0503E000 to 5.03E+02 in any cell automatically in CSV I tried to convert it to text number and general but after i save it and reopen it again it goes back to 5.03E+02 How do I ...
CrashOverride's user avatar
28 votes
3 answers
86k views

How can you change Mac excel 2011 to separate using commas, not semicolons?

I have Excel 2011 on my Mac, and when I try to export a .xls file into .csv I end up having a semicolon separated file instead of .csv. p.s. The System preferences for my keyboard input is Italian ...
Cris's user avatar
  • 397
27 votes
2 answers
169k views

Excel save-as CSV options -- possible to change comma to pipe or tab instead?

Is there a way to tell Excel which delimiter to use when producing a CSV, e.g. tab or pipe?
Tim's user avatar
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24 votes
1 answer
9k views

"Save as csv" not available

How can I save single spreadsheet as a csv file in Gnumeric (version 1.12.28)? Going through File - Save As offers several file types like .gnumeric, .xls or .ods, but not .csv.
user1251007's user avatar
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24 votes
2 answers
60k views

Unix command to get number of lines in a CSV file

I have to get the count of lines from incoming CSV files. I have used the following command to get the count. wc -l filename.csv Consider a file coming with 1 record, I am getting some files with ...
Devoloper250's user avatar
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23 votes
4 answers
32k views

Excel does not honor the delimiter setting for reading or writing CSV files

When saving/opening CSV files in Excel, the default separator is a semicolon ;, as I need it to be a comma , I tried to change it by changing the Language and Regional settings following several other ...
Sandra's user avatar
  • 701
23 votes
2 answers
54k views

Open a .csv file in Excel and have it update whenever .csv file changes

Hi I'm working with some web scrapping and the data on my csv files will be constantly changing. I want to open these files on Excel to view and also have it refresh whenever the csv source changes ...
meiryo's user avatar
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22 votes
2 answers
54k views

How to control CSV import into Excel 2010

When I open CSV files in Excel 2010 I get entire rows in cells, not distributed according comma separation. How to control this?
Dims's user avatar
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22 votes
4 answers
20k views

Light text editor for CSV file? [closed]

Could anybody suggest a light (small, fast) text editor that can handle columnar view of csv files? save quote character to all fields, even if not 'necessary' OpenOffice Calc is bit big for my old ...
Radek's user avatar
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22 votes
5 answers
32k views

How can you make Excel 2007 stop formatting large numbers as scientific notation?

Kind of the inverse of this question. I frequently download CSVs from outside sources as part of my programming work. I like to examine their data in Excel because, let's face it, Excel is an ideal ...
John Rudy's user avatar
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22 votes
5 answers
37k views

How do I export only visible cells from Excel to CSV?

I am running Excel 2010. At the top of my spreadsheet I have about 10 hidden rows. When I export to CSV, how do I export only visible cells?
SDSD's user avatar
  • 221
20 votes
2 answers
97k views

What's the difference between - CSV (MS-Dos), CSV (Macintosh), CSV (comma delimited)

What's the difference between - CSV (MS-Dos), CSV (Macintosh), CSV (comma delimited) file types in excel 2010? They are all listed as a save file type, but ultimately are Comma Separated Value files.
chobo2's user avatar
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19 votes
5 answers
83k views

Why does excel always say "..may contain features that are not compatible with CSV" when saving a CSV file?

Every CSV I've ever tried to save from Excel (2010, anyway) says filename.csv may contain features that are not compatible with CSV (Comma delimited). Do you want to keep the workbook in this format?. ...
gregmac's user avatar
  • 678
19 votes
8 answers
37k views

Increase size limit of data import from csv into Excel

I have a load of data in a csv file that I'm importing into Excel, most of it is fine, but one of my columns contains up to 1000 characters of data. Unfortunately, Excel has taken it upon itself to ...
SwiftD's user avatar
  • 528
18 votes
5 answers
33k views

Importing CSV into Excel with commas in quoted fields

I have a CSV file that contains a text field that can have commas in it. When importing it into Excel, it's picking up these commas as field separators. I have the field in quotes, and I've tried ...
user avatar
18 votes
1 answer
41k views

Excel save behaviour of CSV file with UTF8 encoding vs UTF8-Bom encoding

My original csv files are encoded with UTF8-BOM, this is so Excel can recognise the Unicode charcters (If its just encoded with UTF8 then Excel does not recognise the unicode characters). My issue ...
user2945722's user avatar
18 votes
2 answers
17k views

True difference between Excel CSV and Standard CSV

What is the true difference between an Excel CSV and a standard CSV? For example, when handling columns with line breaks inside one cell, how do they encode it differently?
user157195's user avatar
18 votes
3 answers
6k views

Excel: Is there a registry setting to suppress the warning messages when saving spreadsheets in CSV format?

I work with many CSV files, and am constantly annoyed by the Excel dialog that pops up when I try to save a file: "[your spreadsheet] may contain features that are not compatible with CSV (Comma ...
gw.'s user avatar
  • 281
17 votes
9 answers
103k views

How do I get Excel to import a CSV file with commas in some of the content fields?

How do I get Excel to import my CSV file? File I have a file claiming to be CSV. It contains 10 fields, all of which are surrounded by double quotes (yes, even the dates and numbers.) 2 or 3 of these ...
Rory Becker's user avatar
17 votes
3 answers
16k views

Interactive console based CSV editor

Although spreadsheet applications for editing CSV files on the console used to be one of the earliest killer applications for personal computers, only few of them and even less documentation about ...
Penguin Nurse's user avatar
17 votes
6 answers
25k views

Importing multiline cells from csv file into excel

I have a csv file (comma delimited and quoted). When csv file is opened directly from explorer excel correctly interprets the cells that are mutliline, but it messes up the character encoding (utf-8). ...
Unreason's user avatar
  • 473
16 votes
6 answers
46k views

Excel CSV import treating quoted strings of numbers as numeric values, not strings

I've got a web application that is exporting its data to a CSV file. Here's one example row of the CSV file in question: 28,"65154",02/21/2013 00:00,"false","0316295","8316012,8315844","MALE" Since ...
Michael Oryl's user avatar
16 votes
3 answers
32k views

Saving filtered results from an Excel workbook to a CSV file

I have an Excel workbook with a lot of rows in it. I filter it using the values of one column and then I want to save the filtered results to a CSV file. When I do "Save as..." I get all the rows. I ...
Niklas Winde's user avatar
15 votes
8 answers
25k views

Notepad++ - Removing the first column in a comma separated file

I have a large CSV file that I need to remove the first column of data. I cannot open it in Excel because Excel converts some of the values in the columns to scientific numbers. I am using Notepad++, ...
MikeD's user avatar
  • 151
15 votes
4 answers
28k views

Excel often save .csv files as tab delimited format. What happened?

I never know how that may happen. I really really hate it. That's because my program counts on csv files being csv. And I never know, until now, how can my csv file becomes tab delimited format ...
user4951's user avatar
  • 4,685
15 votes
1 answer
38k views

Saving a file in a CSV type in Excel always removes the BOM

I've been trying to find a reasonable solution/explanation (unsuccessfully) to find out why Excel defaults to removing the BOM when saving a file to the CSV type. Please forgive me if you find this a ...
rickp's user avatar
  • 251
14 votes
5 answers
123k views

Difference between CSV and XLS files?

What are CSV and XLS(Microsoft or OpenOffice) files ? What is the main difference between these two files ?
Puru's user avatar
  • 767
14 votes
3 answers
32k views

LibreOffice is saving CSV files with tabs as separators

I just opened a CSV file in LibreOffice, made a small change and hit save, saying "yes, keep using CSV". The file is now filled with tabs instead of commas. My scripts (using Python's CSV lib) won't ...
jozxyqk's user avatar
  • 2,782
13 votes
5 answers
28k views

How to import external csv/text file WITHOUT table formatting

I am using Excel that comes with Office 365. And this version of Excel does something annoying that's breaking all my macros. I want to import a CSV file into a sheet WITHOUT any table formatting and ...
learningtech's user avatar
  • 1,141
13 votes
1 answer
14k views

Disable prompts in Microsoft Excel when saving a CSV file [duplicate]

I have to download multiple csv reports from the Internet throughout the day, make a tiny change to them, and save the change. Excel adds 3 completely unnecessary dialogs to what should really be a 5-...
Matthew S's user avatar
  • 579
12 votes
6 answers
63k views

Why is Excel removing leading zeros when displaying CSV data?

I have a CSV text file with the following content: "Col1","Col2" "01",A "2",B "10", C When I open it up with Excel, it displays as shown here: Note that Cell A2 attempts to display "01" as a number ...
Ivan's user avatar
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