Convert a list to CSV, and CSV to a list

Two shapes of the same data

A list of values comes in two shapes: one per line, as a spreadsheet column or a file listing gives it, and all on one line separated by commas, as a filter, a formula, a configuration value or a mail merge often requires. Moving from one to the other is a constant small job. Doing it by hand risks typos, and a find-and-replace on the line breaks fails as soon as some values contain commas or quotes. This tool converts in either direction and handles those cases properly.

List to CSV

Paste one value per line and get a single line with the values separated by a comma, a semicolon, a tab or a pipe. The default separator is the comma. Use a semicolon if your spreadsheet program uses the comma as its decimal mark, as many European settings do. Values that need it, because they contain the separator, a quotation mark, a line break or spaces at the edges, are wrapped in double quotes, with inner quotes doubled, which is the standard CSV rule; you can also force quotes around every value, or never use them.

CSV to list

Paste a CSV line, or a whole CSV, and get its values one per line. The reader understands quoted values, so a value such as "Smith, John" stays as one item instead of being cut at its comma, and a quotation mark written as two quotes becomes one. Choose the separator or let the tool detect it. If you paste several rows, you can take all cells or just one column by its number, which is a quick way to extract a single column from a small export.

Clean while you convert

You can trim the spaces around every value, remove empty values, which are the typical result of a trailing comma, and remove repeated values. That makes the tool useful for tidying a list of identifiers, tags, email addresses or SKUs before you paste it somewhere that expects a clean, comma-separated line.

What it does not do

The tool converts text; it does not open spreadsheet files. Pasted CSV with different separators in different rows will not be understood. Pasting an entire large CSV to extract one column works, but a proper spreadsheet program is the better place for big or complex tables. To turn rows into a table, use the list to table converter.