CSV done right: quoting, delimiters and Excel quirks
CSV looks trivial until a value contains a comma or a newline. Here is how the format really works.
The rules that everyone forgets
CSV (Comma-Separated Values) stores tabular data as plain text: one row per line, cells separated by a delimiter. When a cell contains the delimiter, a quote or a line break, it must be wrapped in double quotes, with any internal quotes doubled up. Follow those rules and every parser on Earth will read your file correctly.
Why the delimiter matters
Comma is standard, but European locales often use semicolon (because comma is the decimal separator) and data pipelines frequently use tab-separated values (TSV). Our CSV to JSON converter lets you pick the delimiter explicitly — comma, semicolon or tab — so imports from Excel, Google Sheets and warehouse exports Just Work.
From CSV to JSON and back
Once your CSV parses cleanly, jump to JSON to CSV to flatten a nested API response, or use the JSON Tree Viewer to explore the intermediate structure.
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