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TSV to CSV Converter

Paste tab-separated text, for instance cells copied from a spreadsheet, and get valid CSV with correct quoting and the delimiter you need.

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What is TSV to CSV Converter?

TSV files and clipboard data copied from Excel, Google Sheets or LibreOffice separate columns with tab characters. CSV tools expect commas or semicolons, and any cell containing that delimiter, a quote or a line break must be wrapped in quotes with inner quotes doubled.

This converter splits the input on tabs, optionally honouring Excel-style quoted cells (so multi-line cells survive) or treating quotes as ordinary text for strict plain TSV. It can turn \t, \n and \r escape sequences back into real characters, trims spaces if you ask, and writes the CSV with your choice of delimiter, quote character, quoting policy and line endings.

How does it work?

  1. Paste tab-separated text or open a .tsv file.
  2. Choose whether quoted cells are honoured (Excel style) or quotes are plain characters, and tick the unescape box if the file contains \t or \n sequences.
  3. Pick the output delimiter (comma, semicolon, pipe, space or a custom character), the quote character and the quoting policy.
  4. Copy the CSV or download it; a warning lists rows whose column count differs from the first row.

Common use cases

  • Turning a range copied from Excel or Google Sheets into CSV without opening a file dialog.
  • Converting a .tsv export from a database or bioinformatics tool into a CSV that a semicolon-based European spreadsheet opens correctly.
  • Restoring line breaks in a TSV where they had been written as \n.
  • Cleaning a TSV so that text with commas or quotes is safely quoted for a CSV importer.

Examples

Try this input in the tool above:

Input
id	name	note
1	Alice	likes, commas
2	Bob	"say ""hi"""
3	Chloé	line one\nline two
Output
id,name,note
1,Alice,"likes, commas"
2,Bob,"say ""hi"""
3,Chloé,"line one
line two"

Privacy

TSV to CSV Converter runs entirely in your browser. The text or files you provide are processed on your device and are not uploaded, logged or stored on our servers.

Limitations

Rows are converted as they are: a row with a different number of tabs simply gets a different number of fields, and the tool warns about it but does not pad or trim rows.

Frequently asked questions

Should I pick "honour quoted cells" or "plain TSV"?

Choose quoted for data copied from spreadsheets, where cells with tabs or line breaks are wrapped in double quotes. Choose plain when the file is strict IANA-style TSV and quote characters are real data, for example 5" pipe.

What does the unescape option do?

It replaces the two-character sequences \t, \n and \r with a real tab, line feed or carriage return inside each cell. It is the reverse of the escape choice in the CSV to TSV tool.

Why are some output cells wrapped in quotes?

By default a cell is quoted only when needed: when it contains the output delimiter, a quote, a line break or leading or trailing spaces. You can quote every field or every non-numeric field instead.

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