This is because Excel uses your default data format settings to convert each column of the original file to Excel. You might also find some of the data formatted differently from what you had expected. Once the file opens, you might find some data items looking out of place. You can tell if Excel is the default program to open the file from the familiar green Excel icon as shown below: Most of the time computers are set up to open CSV, TSV and other similar files directly in Excel, if it is present on your computer. To open the file in Excel, simply double-click the file.

You can directly open a CSV file that is in any folder from Windows Explorer or your file browser. Method 1: Directly Opening a CSV File in Excel from Windows Explorer Let us look at three ways in which we can convert a CSV file to Excel. So, if you want to use it in Excel, you will need to first get Excel to format the data into a form that can be displayed in cells. The data in CSV files do not contain any kind of formatting. Owing to their ease of storage and their compatibility, the CSV format is a popular file format.

The files contain simply the data in text form, without any formatting or formulas. You can also open them in a simple text editor like Notepad. These files can be opened using any spreadsheet program like Excel, Google Sheets, Open Office, etc. However, it is not uncommon to find CSV files where the values are separated by other symbols like semicolons or tabs. It is a plaintext format file in which values are separated by commas, hence the name Comma Separated Values (CSV).

Dates Converted to Text after Importing CSV to ExcelĪ CSV file is a very commonly used file extension.

Numerical or Text Values Converted to Dates after Importing CSV to Excel.

Lost Leading zeros in numerical values after Converting CSV to Excel.

Values not Separated as Expected After Converting CSV to Excel.

Handling Problems that Arise After Converting a CSV File to Excel.

Method 3: Importing a CSV File to Excel.

Method 2: Opening a CSV File Directly in Excel.

Method 1: Directly Opening a CSV File in Excel from Windows Explorer.

Convert csv file to excel