Excel to CSV saves a sheet of an .xlsx workbook as a CSV file, ready to import into a database, a mailing tool, an online store or a script. Pick the sheet and the separator, check the preview and download.
How to convert Excel to CSV
- Drop an .xlsx file on the page. Workbooks from Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers all work.
- If the workbook has several sheets, pick one from the Sheet list. Each sheet shows its number of rows, and empty sheets are left out.
- Choose the separator and click Download CSV. For a workbook with several sheets, the file name includes the sheet name, for example
orders-March.csv.
Comma or semicolon
| Use | Separator |
|---|---|
| Databases, scripts, Google Sheets, most apps | Comma |
| Excel in Germany, France and other countries with comma decimals | Semicolon |
If the importer has a setting for the separator, comma is the safe default. Choose semicolon only when the file will be opened again in Excel on a computer that uses commas for decimals.
What ends up in the CSV
| In the workbook | In the CSV |
|---|---|
| Text and numbers | Kept as values |
| Dates | Written as YYYY-MM-DD (with time when there is one) |
| Formulas | Their last calculated result |
| Number formats (%, currency, 1,000 separators) | Raw values, such as 0.15 or 1200 |
| Colours, fonts, charts, comments, other sheets | Not included |
Cells that contain the separator, quotes or line breaks are put in quotes, as the CSV standard requires. Text starting with = or @ gets an apostrophe in front, so a spreadsheet will not run it as a formula when the CSV is opened.
Common problems
- Accents look wrong after import: the file is UTF-8 with a marker at the start. Most tools read it correctly; if yours asks, pick UTF-8 as the encoding.
- Leading zeros vanished: if a code like 00123 was stored as a number in Excel, the zeros were never in the file. Format that column as text in Excel, retype the codes and convert again.
- Merged cells: only the first cell of a merged range has a value, so the other columns of that row stay empty.
The workbook is read in your browser and never uploaded, so price lists and customer data stay on your device.