csvlibreoffice
I just opened a CSV file in LibreOffice, made a small change and hit save, saying "yes, keep using CSV". The file is now filled with tabs instead of commas. My scripts (using Python's CSV lib) won't read it and I have go out of my way to replace tabs with commas.
Just to be clear: a CSV file by very definition uses commas, otherwise it'd be a TSV file, right?
Is there some option in LibreOffice I can set to make it use commas when writing CSV files?
While opening CSV files, Excel will use a system regional setting called List separator to determine which default delimiter to use.
Microsoft Excel will open .csv files, but depending on the system's regional settings, it may expect a semicolon as a separator instead of a comma, since in some languages the comma is used as the decimal separator. (from Wikipedia)
On Windows, you can change the List separator setting in the Regional and Language Options as specified on the Office support website :
Change the separator in a CSV text file
- Click the Windows Start menu.
- Click Control Panel.
- Open the Regional and Language Options dialog box.
- Click the Regional Options Tab.
- Click Customize / Additional settings (Win10).
- Type a new separator in the List separator box.
- Click OK twice.
Note: this only works if the Decimal symbol is not also designated as comma (in line with the Wikipedia citation above). If it is, Excel will not use comma as the List separator, even if chosen. For many non-United States regions, comma is the default Decimal symbol.
On Mac OS X, this setting seems to be deduced from the decimal separator setting (in the Language & Region pane of System Preferences, go to Advanced). If the Decimal Separator is a point then the default CSV separator will be a comma, but if the Decimal Separator is a comma, then the default CSV separator will be a semicolon.
As you said yourself in the comment, there is an alternative for Mac users to quickly look at those CSV files. It's plugin for Quick Look called quicklook-csv that handles separator detection.
Try these options in the Text Import dialog:
Best Answer
For some users (thoses using KDE), the "edit filter settings" box is gray. A workaround is to use Openoffice dialogs. Tools > Options > LibreOffice > General > Open/Save dialogs > Use LibreOffice dialogs
Then you will be able to choose the field delimiter wanted.
That bug was reported here : https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=72187