Free online text to CSV converter

Text to CSV Converter

Turn plain text, lists, TXT files or delimited data into a clean CSV in seconds. Paste or upload, preview the table, choose your format, and download — free, no sign-up, and nothing is uploaded to a server.

CSV by defaultAuto delimiter detectionExcel-friendlyRuns in your browser
Text to CSV Converter
Paste or upload text to convert.
Input — paste or upload
Drag a file here, or browse (.txt, .csv, .tsv, .json)
Output
Input is
Input delimiter
Column widths
Output as
Custom delimiter
Plain text style
Quoting
Line ending

A live table preview of your data appears here.

Tip: the output is set to CSV — switch the Output as menu to TSV, pipe, fixed-width, plain text, HTML table or JSON whenever you need a different format.

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Step by step

How to convert text to CSV

Paste or upload

Paste your text or list into the box, or drop a .txt / .csv file. The tool reads it in your browser.

Check the preview

It auto-detects the delimiter and shows a live table with row and column counts so you can spot problems.

Download the CSV

Keep the output on CSV (or pick another format) and click Download or Copy. Done.

What it does

A complete text and CSV converter

Smart delimiter detection

Automatically recognizes comma, tab, pipe and semicolon, with manual override and fixed-width parsing for aligned columns.

Live table preview

See your data as a grid before you export, including a warning when rows have an inconsistent number of columns.

Excel compatibility

UTF-8 BOM for correct encoding and an Excel-safe option that protects leading zeros and long numbers.

Ten output formats

CSV, TSV, pipe, space, semicolon, custom delimiter, fixed-width, plain text, HTML table and JSON.

Private by design

All parsing happens locally in your browser. Your text never leaves your device, so it is safe for sensitive data.

Copy, download, history

Copy the result, download a file, or reopen a recent conversion saved on your device.

Formats & delimiters

Output formats explained

Choosing the right output format is the difference between data that just works and a file another program rejects. Here is what each option in the Output as menu produces, and when to use it.

CSV (comma-separated values)

The default and most portable choice. Fields are separated by commas and any field containing a comma, quote or line break is wrapped in double quotes, following the standard CSV rules. CSV opens in Excel, Google Sheets, databases and virtually every data tool.

TSV, pipe, semicolon and custom delimiters

Sometimes your data already contains commas, or a target system expects another separator. Tab-separated (TSV) is the safest for messy text; pipe (|) and semicolon (;) are common in exports and European spreadsheets. Pick Custom delimiter to type any character.

Which delimiter should you pick?

For Excel and Google Sheets

CSV works everywhere; if your locale uses a comma as the decimal mark, semicolon-delimited may import more cleanly. Enable UTF-8 BOM so non-Latin text is read correctly.

For databases and legacy systems

Tab or pipe delimiters avoid clashes with comma-containing values. Many import tools and older systems specifically expect pipe-delimited or fixed-width files.

A note on quotes and encoding

Use Quote all when an importer is strict, or No quotes for the simplest possible output. Keep encoding as UTF-8 to preserve accents and CJK characters.

Fixed-width and plain text

Fixed-width pads every column to a set width so the file lines up in a monospace view — still used in banking and mainframe feeds. Plain text strips structure for a human-readable list, one row or one cell per line.

HTML table and JSON

Generate an HTML <table> to paste straight into a web page, or export JSON (an array of objects keyed by your header row) for APIs and JavaScript. These are the convert csv to html table and json to csv jobs handled on their own pages too.

When you'd use it

Real situations this solves

  • Tidy a copied list. Paste names, emails, addresses or a keyword list and get a structured CSV for a spreadsheet or import.
  • Reshape an export. Convert a system’s CSV into tab, pipe, space or fixed-width text so another tool can read it.
  • Clean scraped or OCR text. Turn pasted, semi-structured text into a table you can analyze.
  • Prepare a database import. Standardize many text files into consistent CSV, then load them into a database or BI tool.
  • Fix Excel headaches. Keep leading zeros, long IDs and encoding intact when opening CSV in Excel.
What people say

Trusted for quick conversions

“Pasted a 2,000-row list and had a clean CSV in seconds. The Excel-safe option saved my zip codes.”

— Data analyst

“Finally a converter that doesn’t upload my files. The delimiter detection just works.”

— Backend developer

“The table preview catches bad rows before I import. I use the pipe and TSV outputs daily.”

— Ops engineer
FAQ

Text to CSV converter — questions

How do I convert text to CSV?

Paste your text into the converter above (or upload a .txt file), and it instantly detects the delimiter and shows a table preview. Keep the output set to CSV and click Download result or Copy. Everything runs in your browser, so your data is never uploaded.

How do I choose the right delimiter?

Leave the input on Auto-detect and the tool guesses comma, tab, pipe or semicolon from your data. If the columns look wrong, set the input format to Delimited text and pick the delimiter manually, or use Fixed width for space-aligned columns.

Does it support other languages and UTF-8?

Yes. Text is handled as UTF-8, so accents, Chinese, Japanese and other characters are preserved. For Excel, tick UTF-8 BOM so it opens non-Latin characters correctly.

Can it open correctly in Excel?

Yes. Use CSV output and enable UTF-8 BOM for encoding, and Excel-safe numbers to keep leading zeros and long IDs from turning into scientific notation. See fix CSV Excel formatting issues.

Is there a file size limit?

There is no hard limit, but very large files depend on your device's memory since everything runs locally. For big jobs see the large text file to CSV converter, and for many files at once use the batch converter.

Can I convert CSV back to text?

Yes — use Swap, or open the CSV to Text and CSV to delimited text tools to export tab, pipe, space or fixed-width text.