CSV files

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I was going to write today, I swear I was. Then D. calls and says she needs help with mailing lists, and why don’t they work? etc. Importing and exporting (not necessarily in that order)…

Figuring out the secrets of file formats. Yup, that’s me!

Today’s file format lesson: If you use Microsoft Excel to export data in .csv format, the result (even though it looks like a .csv file and says it is a .csv file) is not necessarily usable as a .csv file.

I don’t know why that is, but if Bill Gates were here right now, he’d be so slapped.

2 thoughts on “CSV files”

  2. I’m not really sure — what I ended up doign was copy the output from Excel’s .csv file, and paste it into a new file. Worked perfectly. I’ve seen hints of such problems around the internet, but can’t pin it down precisely. I think MS leaves a character or so off of the beginning of the file.

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