Excel, Google Sheets & CSV

Make sense of messy spreadsheets.

Missing zeros, mixed-up dates, and columns that won't cooperate. Find the cause and work through the fix with a small example file.

Find your fix

Excel, Google Sheets & CSV. No sign-up.

Paper spreadsheets, a magnifying glass and loose rows arranged on a workbench.

Where did the zeros go?

Original IDAs a numberAs text
0012312300123
00007700007
01230123001230

Import identifiers as text to keep every digit. These synthetic examples are in the guide's download.

Keep leading zeros in Excel

Find your kind of fix

Start with the problem in front of you.

CSV imports

Get your data into the right columns, with its identifiers and characters intact.

Guides: 17

Dates & numbers

Untangle dates, decimal separators, and values that only look like numbers.

Guides: 14

Data cleanup

Find hidden differences and bring mismatched exports back into order.

Guides: 30
Browse all guides

Work on your file

Browse all CSV tools
Paper spreadsheet columns inspected through a green magnifying glass.

CSV delimiter checker

Comma, semicolon, tab or pipe? Paste complete rows to find a likely separator and preview the fields, including quoted notes.

Check a separator
Two paper spreadsheets flowing into one table with aligned columns.

Merge CSV files online by column name

Combine exports under one header. Columns match by their exact names, so a different column order will not move values into the wrong fields.

Merge CSV files
Repeated paper rows lifted from a spreadsheet.

Remove CSV duplicates by selected columns

Choose which columns define a duplicate. Keep the first or last matching row without deleting cells from the middle of a record.

Remove duplicates
One paper spreadsheet divided into smaller sheets with matching headers.

Split CSV into smaller files with headers

Divide a CSV into smaller files by data-row count. Every part keeps the header, and a line break inside a quoted field stays with its record.

Split CSV

Know what changed.

Every guide explains what changed, includes a small synthetic example, and shows the result to look for. Sources and testing limits are stated so you can judge what applies to your file.

How these guides are made