What is a CSV file and how to create it?

You might have come across this word CSV file. You have needed it somewhere; you might have read like this “Provide a CSV file.” Or you may just have read it on internet. So what a CSV file is?

CSV is a short form of comma separated values. It is any file containing text that is separated by comma. 

e.g

Text can also be separated with any other special character. Creating a CSV file is as simple as creating a text file. It can be created in any text editor. It is mostly created using Microsoft Excel or Open Office Calc. We will see how to create a CSV file using a text editor and Microsoft Excel.

Notepad (or any text editor):

To create a CSV file in a text editor open a new text editor program, such as Notepad. Once open write the text data you wish the file to contain and separate each field or column of data with a comma and each row with a new line

Title1,Title2,Title3 one,two,three example1,example2,example3

As an example, if you were to create a text file with the above data, and save it as a CSV file, each column is created by each comma and each row is created by each new line. Therefore, the above data if opened in a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel would create a table similar to the below example.

Title1	Title2	Title3
one	Two	Three
example1	example2	example3

If the data you're planning to use in your CSV file already has comma's, such as an address; it's easier to use a different delimiter to separate each of the values. For example, in the below CSV file we will be creating names and addresses for labels that will be printed and are separating each name and address label with a tilde character. Alternatively a better solution would be to have the address, city, and state in their own column.

Name
Street Address
City, State ZIP Code
~Mr John Smith
123 Fake address
Salt Lake City, Utah 89110
~Mrs Jane Doe
586 Another fake
Delta, Utah 84624
~Bill White
123 N Fake Street
St Anthony, Idaho 83445

Microsoft Excel:

Open Microsoft Excel and the file you wish to save as a CSV file. For example, below is the data contained in our example Excel worksheet.

Item	Cost	Sold	Profit
Keyboard	$10.00	$16.00	$6.00
Monitor	$80.00	$120.00	$40.00
Mouse	$5.00	$7.00	$2.00
		Total	$48.00

Once open, click File, choose the Save As option, and as the Save as type: select the CSV (Comma delimited) (*.csv) option. Once saved, if you were to open the CSV file in a text editor, such as Notepad, the CSV file should resemble the below example.

Item,Cost,Sold,Profit Keyboard,$10.00,$16.00,$6.00 Monitor,$80.00,$120.00,$40.00 Mouse,$5.00,$7.00,$2.00 ,,Total,$48.00

Additional Tip:

You can also create a CSV file using Google Docs. Here is how?

Open Google Docs and the Spreadsheet file you wish to save as a CSV file. Click File, Download as, and then select CSV (current sheet).