CSV Viewer & Formatter

1. Paste CSV, drop a .csv, .tsv or .txt file, or press ⌘/Ctrl O. The data appears as a table, with the delimiter detected automatically.
2. Choose the Output delimiter and whether to Quote every field or Trim fields. The status line shows the row and column counts and flags rows of different lengths.
3. Download the normalized file with Download .csv (⌘/Ctrl S), copy it with ⌥/Alt C, or convert the rows to JSON.

#Pipe-separated export to commas

A pipe-delimited file, as produced by some databases and mainframe exports, rewritten with commas.

id|name|city
1|Asha Rao|Pune
2|Ben Ortiz|Austin

Result:

id,name,city
1,Asha Rao,Pune
2,Ben Ortiz,Austin

#Padded fields and embedded quotes

A semicolon file with stray spaces around values and a quoted field that contains a semicolon and doubled quotes. With the default settings, fields are trimmed and only the value that needs quoting is quoted.

name;note;amount
 Asha ;"said ""hi""; then left";10
Ben ;  ; 20 

Result:

name,note,amount
Asha,"said ""hi""; then left",10
Ben,,20

#Tab-separated output, every field quoted

The semicolon file below written with a tab delimiter and Quote every field on — a shape some import tools require.

sku;product;price
A-100;Keyboard;49,90
A-101;Mouse;19,50

Result:

"sku"	"product"	"price"
"A-100"	"Keyboard"	"49,90"
"A-101"	"Mouse"	"19,50"

• Delimiter — the separator used to read the input: Auto-detect sniffs the first lines, or choose Comma, Semicolon, Tab or Pipe to override it.
• Output delimiter — the separator written in the formatted file: comma, semicolon, tab or pipe, independent of the input.
• Quote every field — wraps every value in double quotes; when off, only values containing the delimiter, a quote or a line break are quoted.
• Trim fields — removes spaces at the start and end of every value, which cleans up files padded for alignment.

#"Rows have different numbers of columns"

The status changes to Ragged rows when rows have different lengths. The usual cause is a value containing the delimiter without being quoted, such as an address with a comma. Find the longer row in the table, then quote that value in the source.

#Quoted field unterminated

A value opens with " and never closes, so the parser cannot tell where the row ends. The error names the row. Close the quote, and inside a quoted value write a literal quote as two quotes: "".

#Quotes after a space are treated as text

A quote only starts a quoted field when it is the first character of the field. In Asha, "hello, world" the space before the quote makes the quotes part of the value, and the comma inside splits it into two columns. Remove the space after the delimiter in the source so the quotes work as intended.

#The table shows everything in one column

The delimiter was not detected, typically because the file has only one row or uses an unusual separator. Set Delimiter explicitly.

#Excel shows garbled accents after download

Excel may assume a legacy encoding for CSV files. Import the file through Excel's text import with UTF-8 selected, or go through CSV to JSON and JSON to CSV with Excel-friendly (BOM) on.

#Is it safe to open CSV files with customer data here?

Yes. The file is read and parsed in your browser inside an isolated frame that blocks network requests, so contact lists, transactions and exports never leave your device, and nothing is stored on a server. Settings are remembered on this device; the file contents are only kept if you turn on "Remember my last input".

#How large a CSV file can I view?

Files up to 50 MB can be opened, and larger inputs are parsed in a background worker so the page stays responsive. The table view shows up to 10,000 rows; the formatted output always contains every row, so downloads are complete even when the preview is limited.

#Does formatting change my data?

Only the delimiters, the quoting and — with Trim fields on — the spaces at the edges of values. Values are never converted: leading zeros, long IDs and decimal commas stay exactly as written. Empty lines are removed. Turn off Trim fields if leading or trailing spaces are meaningful.

#How do I convert a semicolon CSV to a comma CSV?

Paste the file, leave Delimiter on Auto-detect or set it to Semicolon, and set Output delimiter to Comma. Values that contain a comma, such as decimal numbers written 49,90, are quoted automatically in the output so they stay in one column.

#Can I open a TSV file?

Yes. Tab-separated files are detected like any other delimiter, and you can write them back out as CSV by leaving Output delimiter on Comma. For converting TSV files back and forth regularly, TSV to CSV is a dedicated tool.

#What is the difference between this and CSV to JSON?

This tool keeps the data as CSV: it displays it and normalizes the text. CSV to JSON changes the format, producing an array of objects with typed numbers and booleans. A common workflow is to check a file here first, then use Convert to JSON.

Opening a CSV in a spreadsheet can quietly change it — stripping leading zeros, reformatting dates and turning long numbers into scientific notation. Viewing it here shows the file exactly as written, so you can confirm columns and quoting before a database import or a spreadsheet ever touches it. More tools for tabular data are in the data tools category.