About the CSV Escape
CSV has no backslash escape. The format solves collisions a different way: a field that contains the delimiter, a double quote, or a line break is wrapped in double quotes, and every double quote inside it is written twice. That is the entire rule, and this tool applies it per value. Paste one value per line and each line comes back either untouched or correctly quoted, so Smith, John becomes "Smith, John" and She said "hello" becomes "She said ""hello""".
Values with leading or trailing spaces are quoted too. Many parsers trim unquoted whitespace, so quoting is the only way to guarantee the padding survives a round trip. If your data uses semicolons, tabs or pipes as the separator, change the delimiter and the quoting decision follows it.
Switch to single-field mode when the value itself spans several lines, for example a comment or an address block. The whole input is then quoted once with its internal newlines intact, which is legal CSV and what spreadsheet software produces for a wrapped cell. The status line tells you how many fields needed quoting, which is a quick way to spot dirty exports. To turn a full table into CSV, JSON to CSV handles the quoting automatically, and CSV Unescape takes the quoting back off.
How to use
- Paste your values, one per line.
- Choose the delimiter your file uses so the right characters trigger quoting.
- Switch to a single multi-line field if the whole input is one cell.
- Copy the escaped values into your CSV.
Common questions
- Why is a value with a comma quoted but a plain word is not?
- RFC 4180 only requires quoting when a field contains the delimiter, a quote or a newline. Leaving the rest bare keeps the file smaller and easier to read.
- How is a double quote escaped in CSV?
- By doubling it. Inside a quoted field, two double quotes mean one literal quote character.
- Can a CSV field contain a line break?
- Yes, as long as the field is quoted. Excel, Numbers and most parsers read it back as a single cell.
- What does "Quote every field" do?
- It wraps every value in quotes whether or not it needs it, which some strict importers and database loaders prefer.