About the CSV to TSV Converter
Tab-separated values paste directly into a spreadsheet cell grid, while comma-separated text pastes into a single column. That is the usual reason to convert. A naive find-and-replace breaks on any field that contains a comma inside quotes, such as "Cork, Ireland". This converter parses the CSV properly first, so every field lands in the right column, then writes it out with tabs and quotes only where a field itself contains a tab or line break.
Semicolon and pipe delimited inputs are accepted as well, with auto-detection by default. The header row is passed through unchanged, and line breaks inside a quoted CSV field survive the trip rather than splitting the row in two.
The limitation to know about is on the TSV side. CSV solves the problem of a comma inside a value by quoting the field, but tab-separated text has no quoting rule that every reader honours, so a cell that genuinely contains a tab character is trouble wherever it ends up. This converter quotes such fields the way CSV would, which spreadsheets accept on paste, though a script that simply splits each line on tabs will still get it wrong. If your data has embedded tabs or newlines, JSON is a safer destination than TSV.
The everyday use is moving an export into Excel or Google Sheets without going near the import dialog: convert, copy the output, click a cell, and paste, and the columns land where they belong. The TSV to CSV tool converts back, CSV Viewer lets you check the parsed columns before converting, and TSV to JSON takes the same data on to code.
How to use
- Paste or upload the CSV.
- Click Copy, switch to your spreadsheet, and paste into a cell.
- Or download the .tsv file.
Common questions
- What happens to fields that contain a tab?
- They are quoted, following the same rules CSV uses for commas.
- Does it change the encoding?
- No. Text is passed through as UTF-8.
- Can it convert semicolon-separated files?
- Yes. Auto-detect picks up semicolons, or set the delimiter explicitly.