Excel to CSV Converter

CSV is the universal import format: databases, CRMs, e-commerce platforms, mailing tools and analytics software all accept it. Converting from Excel sounds trivial, yet Excel's own Save As often produces files with broken accents or the wrong separator. This converter gives you control over both, without needing Excel installed.

1. Upload or drop your .xlsx workbook.
2. Select the sheet you want to export if there is more than one.
3. Under Options → CSV output, choose a comma (international) or a semicolon (European Excel).
4. Click Download to save a UTF-8 CSV file.

Example

name,email,country,signup_date,orders
Amina El Idrissi,amina@example.com,Morocco,2026-02-11,4
Jürgen Weiß,jurgen@example.de,Germany,2026-03-02,1

Accented characters such as ü and ß survive because the file is written as UTF-8, and the date is exported as an unambiguous ISO date instead of a locale-specific format like 02/03/2026.

Comma or semicolon?

The C in CSV stands for comma, but in France, Morocco, Germany, Spain and much of Europe, Excel uses a semicolon because the comma is the decimal separator. If the CSV is for a system or a colleague using such a locale, pick Semicolon under CSV output. For databases, APIs and most software, keep the default comma. A pipe | is also available for legacy systems.

UTF-8 and special characters

Downloaded CSV files are encoded as UTF-8 and start with a byte-order mark. That invisible marker is what tells Excel to read the file as UTF-8, so Arabic, Chinese, accented and emoji characters display correctly when the CSV is opened again. Most other software ignores it.

What is exported — and what is not

• Values only: formulas are exported as their calculated results.
• No formatting: colours, bold text, merged cells and number formats are not part of CSV. A cell displayed as $1,234.50 is exported as 1234.5.
• One sheet per file: CSV has no concept of sheets, so export each sheet separately.
• Correct quoting: values containing the delimiter, quotes or line breaks are wrapped in quotes as required by RFC 4180.

Excel's Save As versus this converter

In Excel, CSV (Comma delimited) saves the file in your computer's legacy code page, which turns characters such as é or Arabic letters into question marks, and it always uses your regional separator. Newer versions add a CSV UTF-8 option, but it still follows the regional separator. Here you choose the separator explicitly, the output is always UTF-8, and you can preview the exact result before downloading.

Convert Excel to CSV in code

For one-off files the tool above is quickest. To automate the same task in a script or pipeline, these snippets are a good starting point.

Python (pandas)

import pandas as pd  # pip install pandas openpyxl

df = pd.read_excel("data.xlsx", sheet_name=0, dtype=str)
df.to_csv("data.csv", index=False, sep=",", encoding="utf-8-sig")

Command line (LibreOffice)

# Converts the first sheet; works on Windows, macOS and Linux
soffice --headless --convert-to csv --outdir out/ data.xlsx

Frequently asked questions

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