Convert TXT to CSV

A TXT file does not say where its columns are

TXT describes a container with text in it, not a table format. One file may separate fields with tabs, another with semicolons, a third with pipes, and a fourth may contain one value on each line. Renaming any of them to .csv does not establish which interpretation is correct. A converter has to make that decision visible before it writes a new extension.

Auto mode above has a deliberately small vocabulary: comma, semicolon, tab, and pipe. It counts only delimiters outside quoted fields, then shows the resulting columns. If none is present, each source line remains one cell. Ordinary spaces stay ordinary spaces. Splitting on whitespace would turn a person's full name, a street address, or a sentence into invented columns, while fixed-width records require boundaries supplied by someone who knows the source specification. This tool does neither and says so in the receipt.

Convert TXT to CSV without sacrificing the first row

Many text tables begin with names such as customer, city, and postal code. Others begin immediately with data. The header switch controls that difference. When it is on, the first record becomes the CSV header. When it is off, every source record remains data and the converter supplies neutral names such as Column 1. The preview changes before download, so the choice is inspectable instead of becoming a surprise inside Excel.

Quoted commas, doubled quote marks, and line breaks inside quoted fields follow CSV parsing rules when a real delimiter is selected. Rows with a different number of cells are not padded with invented values or silently discarded. They remain in the output and receive a shape warning. Leading-zero values such as 01234 also remain byte-for-byte in their cells, with a warning that spreadsheet software may reinterpret them when opening a CSV.

Encoding is separate from the delimiter

A file can have the right tab structure and still display the wrong characters. UTF-8, UTF-16, and Windows-1252 describe how bytes become characters; comma and tab describe how those characters become cells. File input keeps those two decisions separate. The detected encoding is shown, and changing it re-reads the original bytes rather than converting text that was already damaged. Pasted text has already been decoded by the browser, so there are no original file bytes to inspect and the page says that plainly.

Output is comma-delimited CSV with CRLF record endings and UTF-8 encoding. The optional byte order mark helps versions of Excel that otherwise guess a legacy encoding. It does not control columns and it cannot prevent a spreadsheet from treating a text-looking value as a number. If the input is already a CSV and the goal is to search, sort, repair, or export it to several formats, use the CSV viewer. If the desired result is an actual workbook with typed cells, use CSV to Excel instead.