CSV files typically use commas to separate column values (hence Comma Separated Values). But sometimes they use other characters, such as semi-colons (;), pipes (|) and tabs. So it is sometimes necessary to change the delimiter, for example when another tool expects a particular character delimiter.
Trying to convert the delimiter using simple find and replace (e.g. in a text editor) is not advisable, because you might covert a delimiter character inside a value. For example a name value in a CSV file might include a comma:
“Name”,”Country” “Smith, John”,”UK”
If you replace all the commas with semi-colons, you will get:
“Name”;”Country” “Smith; John”;”UK”
Which means “Smith, John” has become “Smith; John”, which is almost certainly not what you want.
However it is very easy to the change the CSV delimiter of CSV or Excel files in Easy Data Transform:
If you have large number of files to convert you can do it using the batch processing feature.
As well as changing file format, Easy Data Transform also allows you to combine 48 transforms to quickly and easily create complex data transformations. See our quick start guide for a short overview.
v1.11.2 for Windows 10 / 8 / 7 (50 MB)
v1.11.2 for Mac 11.1 to 10.12 (25 MB)
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