Excel to CSV Converter

What the converter accepts

This converter reads XLSX and legacy binary XLS workbooks. It does not parse XLSM, XLSB or ODS files. An extension is not enough: the browser checks the file signature and rejects empty, malformed or mismatched files.

To keep browser memory and downloads under control, one workbook can be at most 20 MiB, contain at most 100 sheets and contain at most 2 million cells in total. Output generation is bounded too; if the selected data would exceed the safe output limit, the conversion stops instead of attempting an unbounded download.

Choose the delimiter and encoding

Tab-delimited output uses the .tsv extension. The other delimiters produce .csv files. The exporter writes CRLF line endings and applies CSV quoting consistently: a field containing the chosen delimiter, a double quote or a line break is enclosed in double quotes, and embedded double quotes are doubled. These rules follow the common CSV conventions described in RFC 4180.

UTF-8 is the best default for modern systems. UTF-8 with BOM can help desktop spreadsheet programs recognize Unicode when a CSV is opened directly. Latin-1 is available for older Western European systems, but it is strict: if any selected value cannot be represented in Latin-1, the export is rejected instead of replacing or corrupting characters. Choose UTF-8 for multilingual data and any unsupported character.

What happens to formulas and formatting

CSV stores text rows, not spreadsheet logic or presentation. The converter exports the displayed values already stored in the workbook. It does not run Excel or recalculate formulas. A formula cell with a cached result uses that stored result; a formula without a cached result is left blank and reported in the warning summary.

The output does not preserve formulas, formatting, merged-cell behavior, charts, images, comments or multiple sheets inside one file. It also does not reinterpret dates or perform locale-based date conversion. Check the preview before downloading if exact displayed text matters.

Sheet visibility is shown in the selector, including Hidden and VeryHidden sheets. You decide which sheets to export. Hidden rows and columns are excluded by default unless you enable the option to include them.

Formula-injection protection

Text that begins with certain characters can be treated as a formula when a CSV is later opened in Excel or another spreadsheet application. The default safety option neutralizes those formula-like values. This reduces the risk described by OWASP’s CSV Injection guidance.

You can disable that protection when an exact character-for-character export is required, but that is a deliberate tradeoff. Use exact-text mode only for trusted workbooks, because formula-like text may become active when the exported file is opened in spreadsheet software.

Browser-local processing and temporary drafts

Workbook parsing, conversion and ZIP creation happen in your browser. The file, sheet data and generated output are not uploaded or sent over the network.

The multi-step flow may keep an opaque temporary draft in browser storage so your selection survives navigation. The URL contains only an opaque job identifier, not the workbook, its name or its cell data. A draft expires after 30 minutes. After a successful download, cleanup is reported only when the browser confirms it; Start over also clears the active draft. If confirmation fails, the tool warns you rather than claiming the draft is gone.