Table of Contents

CSV Notes

escaping quotes

If a value contains a double quote, it should be preceded with another double quote to escape it properly.

leading zeros / importing into Excel

When a csv file is imported into Excel, the values are parsed and an output format is selected for each cell. This is usually a “General” format. The problem occurs when the value is preceded with zeros, such as “001” which becomes “1” in Excel. An alternative to the standard csv data format is to create a file specifically designed for importing into Microsoft Excel. If you have a particular field which must remain as “Text” format, you can use the following special formatting to force a “Text” format.

1,5,10,"=""005""","=""0018""","John Doe"
6,8,29,"=""325""","=""0500""","Jane Doe"