Tips

Why your CSV looks wrong (and how to fix it)

Diagnose and fix the most common display problems.

Dec 22, 20244 min read

All your data in one column? Weird characters everywhere? Columns don't line up? Here's what's happening and how to fix it.

All data in one column

Your viewer is using the wrong delimiter. The file uses semicolons or tabs, but your tool expects commas. Change the delimiter setting.

Check the actual delimiter in a text editor
Configure your tool to match
Common culprits: European exports, TSV files

Garbled or missing characters

Encoding mismatch. The file uses one encoding, your tool assumes another. Try different encoding options until text displays correctly.

Try UTF-8 first
Then Latin-1 or Windows-1252
Garbled patterns are diagnostic

Quick CTA

See your data as-is

Readable CSV shows what's actually in your file without unwanted interpretation.

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Columns misaligned

Some rows have more or fewer columns than others. This usually means unquoted delimiters in your data or corrupted rows.

Search for rows with wrong column count
Check for delimiters in data values
Look for line breaks in fields

Numbers look weird

Leading zeros dropped, long numbers in scientific notation, or dates reinterpreted. Your tool is being too clever. Import as text to preserve original values.

Import columns as text type
Use a viewer that doesn't guess types
Verify against original file

Key takeaway

Most display problems are delimiter or encoding issues. A quick check in a text editor reveals the truth.