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CSV to TSV Converter

Convert comma-separated values to tab-separated values (TSV).

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How do you convert CSV to TSV?

Swapping commas for tabs sounds like find-and-replace, but a naive swap corrupts any field like “Lovelace, Ada”. This converter parses the CSV properly before re-delimiting, so quoted commas remain part of their cell and only the separators change. TSV is worth the trip: tabs almost never occur in real data, and the result pastes into Google Sheets with every column landing where it should.

How to use the CSV to TSV

  1. 1 Supply standard comma-delimited CSV.
  2. 2 Tabs replace the commas between cells; quoted commas stay put.
  3. 3 Paste the TSV straight into Excel or Sheets to check alignment.

What you can use it for

  • Pasting data straight into Excel or Google Sheets.
  • Feeding tab-delimited input to command-line tools.
  • Converting between the two most common delimiters.
  • Avoiding comma-quoting headaches in exported data.

Frequently asked questions

Why bother converting to TSV?
Real-world data is full of commas and nearly empty of tabs. TSV therefore needs almost no quoting, and spreadsheets paste it into columns without any import dialog.
Will “Smith, John” end up in two cells?
No. The input is parsed as CSV before the delimiters are swapped, so a quoted comma stays inside its one tab-separated cell.
What about a tab already inside a value?
A field containing a literal tab is quoted in the TSV output so the column boundaries stay unambiguous.

Related tools

CSV to TXT Convert CSV data into clean, quote-free plain text, one row per line. CSV to JSON Convert CSV rows into a JSON array of objects, keyed by the header row. Split CSV Split CSV rows into individual fields, one per line.

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