CSV viewer and reader

How to view a CSV file

Paste rows into the CSV input box, or select Open file and pick a UTF-8 file ending in .csv, .tsv or .txt. A chosen file opens at once. Pasted text waits for View CSV, so you can set the reading options first. Load example fills in a header and four sample rows.

1. Paste CSV, or select Open file.
2. Leave Delimiter on Auto-detect, or pick Comma, Semicolon, Tab or Pipe.
3. Keep First row is a header checked when the first line holds column names.
4. Select View CSV and read the Table preview.
5. Type in Search all data cells and select Find rows to narrow the preview.
6. Select Copy CSV or Download CSV.

Editing the text or changing a reading option clears the table until you select View CSV again. Cancel stops a read and keeps your input, while Reset clears the input and the table.

What stays exactly as written

Every field stays a string. The viewer never converts values to numbers, so 00123 keeps its zeros and 9007199254740993 keeps its last digit, which reading it as a JavaScript number would round to 9007199254740992. Spaces at the start or end of a field stay, and blank lines stay as blank records.

Quoted commas, quoted line breaks and doubled quotes come through as the text they stand for. A field written as "He said ""hello""" shows as He said "hello". The table marks an empty field as empty and a field that a short row lacks as missing.

Rows keep their own number of fields. When one row has more fields than the others, the preview adds columns for them. Headers that repeat or are blank keep their column position, and a blank one shows as empty header. The Row and Column numbers only label the preview and never reach a copy or a download.

Search and browse a large table

The Table preview shows 25 rows and 8 columns at a time. Next rows and Previous rows move through the records, and Next columns and Previous columns move across a wide file, so every field is within reach. Each row keeps its data row number, in search results too.

Search all data cells looks for your text inside every field of every data row and ignores case. Find rows narrows the preview to the rows that match. With the header option on, the header row is not searched. The line under Table preview counts data rows, columns and matching rows, and Clear search brings back the full table.

The page sets no file size or row limit. The whole table stays in browser memory while you work with it, so your browser and device set the practical ceiling. A file too large for the browser to decode gets an error message and no partial table.

Copy and download every record

Copy CSV and Download CSV always include every record and column, even while a search narrows the preview. The output uses the delimiter that was detected or selected, puts every field in double quotes and separates records with CRLF line breaks. The download is named table.csv, also with the tab delimiter. Original quoting is not kept and a byte order mark at the start is dropped, but the field values do not change.

The option Prefix formula-like cells with an apostrophe is for files you will open in a spreadsheet. When it is checked, a cell that starts with =, +, - or @, after optional spaces, or with a tab or line break, gains a leading apostrophe.

Header cells count too, and so do negative numbers: -5 becomes '-5. The status line reports the output size and how many cells changed. In the example data only =1+1 changes.

Limits

The viewer reads UTF-8 text only, with or without a byte order mark. A file saved in another encoding, such as Windows-1252, gets an error that asks you to save it as UTF-8. A quoted field that is never closed stops the read with an error that names the record near the problem, and no partial table appears.

Auto-detect chooses between comma, semicolon, tab and pipe. When it cannot tell, it uses comma and says so, and you can then pick the delimiter yourself. The file extension does not decide, so a .tsv file full of commas reads as comma-separated. Pasted text uses the browser's LF line breaks, while text from a file keeps the line breaks inside quoted fields.

This page shows data. It does not edit cells, sort rows, filter by column rules or save XLSX files, and it does not unpack .gz files. It opens one file at a time.