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247 votes
13 answers
685k views

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
117k 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
6 answers
327k 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
  • 4,174
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
  • 2,616
132 votes
9 answers
489k 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
  • 2,987
125 votes
20 answers
555k 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
125 votes
5 answers
569k 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
  • 1,383
120 votes
7 answers
216k 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
  • 1,494
67 votes
9 answers
391k 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
  • 1,341
48 votes
5 answers
54k 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
262k 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
  • 825
38 votes
9 answers
207k 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
  • 381
31 votes
6 answers
112k 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
  • 18.8k
29 votes
8 answers
181k 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
87k 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
171k 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
  • 881
24 votes
2 answers
61k 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
  • 1,449
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
56k 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
  • 833
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
  • 12.8k
22 votes
5 answers
38k 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
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
  • 3,487
20 votes
2 answers
100k 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
  • 1,949
19 votes
5 answers
85k 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
  • 679
19 votes
8 answers
38k 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
1 answer
42k 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
5 answers
35k 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
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
104k 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

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