How to convert Excel to CSV
- Drop your Excel file into the box or choose it. XLSX, XLS and OpenDocument (ODS) spreadsheets all work, and several files at once.
- Pick the separator. Comma is the standard; use Semicolon if the CSV is for Excel in a country that writes decimals with a comma.
- Check the CSV in the preview, then copy it or download it. A workbook with several sheets downloads as a zip with one CSV per sheet.
CSV and Excel files
An Excel file is a whole workbook: several sheets, formatting, formulas, column widths and more, stored in a zipped XML format (XLSX) or the older binary XLS format. A CSV file is plain text: one line per row, with the cells separated by commas. That simplicity is why almost every app, database and programming language can read CSV, and why it is the usual way to move a table between programs.
The conversion keeps the values and drops everything else: formatting, colours, charts, merged cells and formulas (only their results remain). Line breaks inside a cell are kept, with the cell wrapped in quotes as the CSV standard (RFC 4180) describes, and so are commas and quotes inside cells.
Tips
- Hidden sheets are converted too; the note mentions them.
- Empty rows at the end of a sheet, which Excel often keeps after formatting, are left out.
- Need JSON instead? Excel to JSON turns each row into an object with the header row as keys.
- Going the other way: CSV to Excel makes an XLSX file from CSV text.
Spreadsheets are read with SheetJS Community Edition (Apache 2.0 licence).