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How to open a CSV file in Excel

What is CSV

CSV (Comma-Separated Values) is a text format designed to represent tabular data. The data in such a file is separated by commas or other delimiters, such as semicolons or tabs.

Email,Phones,FirstName,Gender,Birthday
jane@example.com,+79000001234,Jane,Female,1995-07-21T01:00:00+04:00
john@example.com,+79009009090,John,Male,2000-04-24T12:00:39+04:00
elizabeth@example.com,+79000000000,Elizabeth,Female,1999-02-04T12:01:17+03:00
michael@example.com,+79000000001,Michael,Male,1994-06-13T12:02:38+04:00

Using CSV files in the platform

CSV files are used in the platform for the following purposes:

Excel is often used for working with CSV files. However, when opening a file, the data may sometimes be displayed incorrectly. The main issue is that Excel incorrectly determines the delimiter used and places all the data in a single column:

Below you will find instructions on how to properly open a CSV file. The interface of the program may vary slightly depending on the version of Excel.

Guide to opening a CSV file

1. Open the file, select the entire first column, and go to the "Data" tab on the top panel. Click "Text to Columns":

2. The program will open the text-to-columns wizard to help you correctly interpret the data. In the first step, specify the data format as Delimited. Click "Next":

3. In the second step, choose Comma as the delimiter. Click "Next":

4. In the third step, if necessary, you can specify the data format for the columns. In the example below, the Date format (year-month-day) is set for the Birthday column. Then click "Finish":

If all steps are done correctly, the data in the file will be distributed across the appropriate columns: