TSV to CSV

1. Paste cells copied straight from a spreadsheet, or drop a .tsv, .tab or .txt file.
2. Pick the direction — TSV → CSV or CSV → TSV — and decide whether to Quote every field. By default only fields that need quotes get them.
3. Download the .csv, open it with View as table in the CSV Viewer & Formatter, or use Convert to JSON to turn the rows into objects with CSV to JSON.

#Cells pasted from a spreadsheet

A comma inside a cell and double quotes inside a cell both require CSV quoting; embedded quotes are doubled, as RFC 4180 specifies:

id	name	note
1	Asha	says "hi"
2	Ben	comma, inside

Result:

id,name,note
1,Asha,"says ""hi"""
2,Ben,"comma, inside"

#Quote every field

Some importers — older database loaders and a few accounting systems — require every field in quotes. With Quote every field on:

region	q1	q2	q3	q4
North	120	140	160	180
South	90	95	110	130

Result:

"region","q1","q2","q3","q4"
"North","120","140","160","180"
"South","90","95","110","130"

#CSV back to TSV

In CSV → TSV mode, commas become tabs. The comma inside comma, inside no longer needs quotes, while a field with quotes or a line break stays quoted so the rows remain intact:

id,name,note
1,Asha,"says ""hi"""
2,Ben,"comma, inside"
3,Chen,"two
lines"

Result:

id	name	note
1	Asha	"says ""hi"""
2	Ben	comma, inside
3	Chen	"two
lines"

• Quote every field — wraps every field in double quotes. Leave it off to quote only fields that contain the delimiter, a double quote, a line break or leading and trailing spaces, which keeps files smaller and easier to read.

The two modes, TSV → CSV and CSV → TSV, are in the mode switch. CSV input is read with automatic delimiter detection, so semicolon-separated files from European Excel also convert to TSV.

#A cell that starts with a quote

A tab-separated cell is treated as quoted only when it starts and ends with ", which is how spreadsheets copy cells that contain quotes or line breaks. A cell such as "Quoted" start does not end with a quote, so it is kept literally and written to CSV as """Quoted"" start"; the rows after it are unaffected.

#Leading zeros disappear when the CSV is opened

The converter keeps 007 exactly as written. Spreadsheet applications strip leading zeros when they open a CSV and guess that the column is numeric. Import the file with the column set to Text instead of double-clicking it.

#Tabs inside cells vanish in CSV → TSV

A tab inside a cell would split it in two in TSV, so each tab inside a field is replaced with a space. Everything else is preserved.

#Blank lines were removed

Empty lines between rows are skipped in both directions, because they are not records. Rows with empty cells, such as 1, or ,2, are kept with their empty fields.

#Accents look wrong in Excel after download

Excel on Windows may assume a legacy encoding for a CSV without a byte order mark. Use Excel's data import and choose UTF-8, or open the file in a spreadsheet application that detects UTF-8.

#How do I convert data copied from Excel into CSV?

Select the cells in Excel or Google Sheets, copy, and paste them here. The clipboard holds tab-separated text, which converts directly to CSV with the right quoting. Download the result as a .csv file, or continue to JSON with the Next actions, without saving an intermediate file.

#When does a CSV field need quotes?

When it contains a comma, a double quote or a line break. Inside a quoted field, a double quote is written twice: says "hi" becomes "says ""hi""". Fields with leading or trailing spaces are quoted too, so the spaces survive other parsers. The converter applies these RFC 4180 rules automatically unless you choose to quote every field.

#Can I convert CSV to TSV here as well?

Yes. Switch the mode to CSV → TSV. Commas become tabs, fields that only needed quotes because of a comma are unquoted, and fields with quotes or line breaks stay quoted. The delimiter of the CSV is detected automatically, so semicolon-separated files work too.

#Does the converter change my values?

No. Numbers, dates and text are copied character for character; only delimiters and quoting change. It does not trim spaces, reformat dates or convert numbers, so 007 and 2026-09-26 come out exactly as they went in.

#Is spreadsheet data uploaded when I convert it?

No. Conversion runs in your browser inside an isolated frame that blocks network requests, and large inputs are processed in a background worker. Nothing is stored unless you turn on "Remember my last input".

Clipboard data from a spreadsheet is tab-separated because tabs rarely appear inside cells, so no quoting is usually needed. CSV is the more widely accepted file format for import.

View the result as a table and normalize delimiters with the CSV Viewer & Formatter, convert rows to objects with CSV to JSON, or go the other way with JSON to CSV. All data tools are under Data.