[tacker2000]

The problem is that nobody in the real world uses tabs.

Everyone uses , or ; as delimiters and then uses either . or , for decimals, depending on the source.

It shouldnt be so hard to auto-detect these different formats, but somehow in 2025, Excel still cannot do it.

[sfn42]

You don't need to auto-detect the format. The delimiter can be declared at the top of the file as for example sep=;

[yrro]

But now that's not CSV. It's CSV with some kind of ad-hoc header...

[sfn42]

It may not be part of any official CSV spec but Excel accepts it. I found that Excel would read my files much more reliably using the sep declaration, which is great when the target audience is less technical types.

[tacker2000]

Ok thats a nice tip, but to be fair when i download some CSV report off some website, i dont wont to open it to check the delimiter, then edit it and resave it. Often I am downloading dozens of such files at a time.

[sfn42]

The idea is that the program that creates the file adds that line at the top. If you're downloading CSV files from websites then ideally they should already have that line.

If they don't then what you could do is create a simple script that just adds that line, and Excel will open the files without you having to hassle with making sure Excel interprets them correctly. Of course that's a bit more challenging if they use different separators, but you might be able to find an easy adaptation for your usecase like making a decision about which delimiter to declare based on the filename. Or you could try to analyze the header row to figure out which delimiter to use based on that.

[IAmBroom]

I love you forever and a day. Thank you.

[sfn42]

Happy to help! :)

[pragmatic]

Pipe enters the chat.

For whatever reason, pipe seems to be support common in health care data.