Change CSV Delimiter

“Comma-separated values” is not always separated by commas. In much of Europe, Excel saves and expects semicolons, because the comma is the decimal separator there. Databases and web services usually want commas, some systems want tabs, and others want pipes. When the separator does not match what the program expects, the whole file lands in one column. This tool re-saves a CSV with the separator you need.

Why Excel shows one column

Excel uses the list separator from your computer’s regional settings when you double-click a CSV. On a German or French system that is a semicolon; on a US system a comma. A comma file opened on a semicolon system, or the other way round, appears as one long column of text. Converting the file to the expected separator fixes it without touching anyone’s settings.

Detection first

When you open a file, the tool tries comma, semicolon, tab and pipe and picks the one that splits the first lines into the most consistent number of columns. The detected separator is shown under the file name; if the preview looks wrong, choose the correct one there. Quoted values that contain the separator are recognized and not split.

Choosing the new separator

Pick comma, semicolon, tab or pipe, or type any other single character required by a specific system. Values that contain the new separator, double quotes or line breaks are wrapped in double quotes, with inner quotes doubled, exactly as the CSV standard requires. Columns therefore never shift, even when a name contains a comma or an address a semicolon.

Quoting, line endings and BOM

“Only when needed” is the clean default. “Every value” suits strict importers. Windows line endings (CRLF) are the safest choice for Excel and most systems; Unix endings (LF) suit scripts and many web tools. A byte order mark helps Excel recognize UTF-8 accents when the file is opened by double-click, but some databases and scripts read it as part of the first header, so add it only for Excel.

Check the text

The tool shows the beginning of the new file as plain text, so you can see the separators, quotes and line breaks before downloading. Files with a tab separator are saved with a .tsv extension.

Values are not reinterpreted

Only the punctuation between fields changes. Numbers, dates, leading zeros and accented characters come through exactly as they were in the original file.

Text encoding

If accents look wrong after opening, the problem is the text encoding rather than the separator. Repair it first with Fix CSV Encoding, which also lets you choose the separator of the repaired file.

Pipe and custom separators

Pipe-delimited files are popular in finance and healthcare because the | character rarely appears in names or addresses. Some legacy systems use a tilde, a caret or another rare character. Choose “Another character…” and type it; the same quoting rules apply, so values that happen to contain it are still safe.

Related tools

To turn tab-separated data into a CSV or Excel file, use TSV to CSV. To open a CSV as a proper workbook, use CSV to Excel; to go the other way, Excel to CSV lets you pick the separator when saving.