Skip to content
Convertto
.csvFormat hub

CSV Converter

Comma-separated values. CSV is plain text with one record per line, carrying no types, no formulas and no encoding declaration.

CSV is comma-separated values, described in RFC 4180: one record per line, fields separated by commas, and fields containing a comma, quote or newline wrapped in double quotes. It carries no data types, no formulas, no multiple sheets and no declaration of its own character encoding.

20 conversions available

Convert CSV to another format

Every conversion that takes CSV as the input.

Convert another format to CSV

Every conversion that produces CSV as the output.

Other tools that work with CSV

What a CSV file is

CSV is the least format a table can have. RFC 4180 describes the common shape: records separated by CRLF, fields separated by commas, an optional header line, and double quotes around any field containing a comma, a quote or a line break, with an embedded quote written twice. Plenty of files in the wild deviate from it, which is why parsers have options.

What CSV does not carry is the source of almost every problem with it. There are no types, so a leading zero in a postcode or a product code is indistinguishable from a number and spreadsheets eat it. There is no date format, so 03/04/2026 is ambiguous by continent. There is no encoding declaration, so a file written as UTF-8 and opened as Windows-1252 turns accented characters into mojibake. And there is no notion of a second sheet, a formula or a cell style.

Its virtue is the same as its weakness. Every language, database and spreadsheet reads it, it diffs cleanly in version control, and it will still open in forty years.

Sources & specifications

Related formats

Share the CSV hub