Why a CSV opens in one column

A CSV is a text table

Columns are separated by a delimiter. Despite the name, CSV exports do not always use commas: semicolons and tabs are also common. Your spreadsheet may expect a different delimiter from the one in the file.

Put this guide into practice with the CSV Viewer & Validator. Review the tool’s inputs, example and limitations alongside your result.

Inspect before replacing characters

Open the file in CSV Viewer. Review the detected delimiter, column names, and preview. If names, amounts, and dates appear in separate columns there, the file may be valid and only need the right spreadsheet import setting.

Do not replace every comma by hand

A quoted value can contain its own commas, such as "Paris, France". A proper parser treats that as one field. A global replace can damage these values and change the table structure.

Import explicitly

In a spreadsheet, use its text/CSV import feature and select the delimiter that matches the export. Review the preview before loading it. If accented characters are also wrong, that is an encoding issue and should be handled separately.

Preserve identifiers

CSV stores text, but a spreadsheet may interpret a postal code or account ID as a number and remove leading zeros. Set such columns to text during import. ToolMallow keeps CSV values as strings during CSV-to-JSON conversion.