Is it possible to export an excel file to CSV with Excel online?

I know it is no problem to do it using the desktop but cannot find the equivalent function in the online version.

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4 Answers

To answer and close this question:

Check Office Help : "Workbooks in other formats, such as .csv format, are generally not supported in Excel Online."

Looks like there is no way around an offline conversion.

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Yes, but not directly. You can copy and paste your content into Google Sheets, and Download as CSV:

I teach college and one of the assignments I give to student in exploring files and structure is to output a spreadsheet I supply as .xls as a .csv file, then examine how the conversion process surrounds data containing commas with quotation marks so as not to confuse the "data" commas from the data delimiting commas. A student ran into this same problem and claimed that he couldn't do the assignment since he used the online version of Excel. In my case the "cure" was simple--the course is designed to also explore free alternative software and an upcoming assignment is to download and install LibreOffice from and try it out, comparing it to MS-Office. I suggest that you do the same. The LibreOffice "Calc" spreadsheet program is quite capable and easily converts a spreadsheet to .csv format with a "save as." LibreOffice is available free for Windows PC and Macs.

Although it is not possible directly, the answer is

Yes, by semi-manual process, using the clipboard and plain text editor.

Follow these steps:

1. Select a range to export in Excel online.
2. Press Ctrl+C to copy it into the clipboard. (Or click Copy icon.)
3. Paste clipboard content into Notepad++ editor.
4. Press Ctrl+H to open Replace window
5. Replace all " with "" in Extended mode (if none were present, 0 replacements is OK).
6. Replace all \t with "," in Extended mode.
7. Replace all \r\n with "\r\n" in Extended mode.
8. Add " to start of the file.
9. Add " to end of the file.
10. Save your result with csv extension. Your CSV file is now ready.

Explanation:

• Steps 1-3 produce TSV content (Tab-separated values) in text editor.
• Step 5 doubles any double quotes (") in the content because "" is their valid expression in CSV file.
• Steps 6-9 surround the values by quotes and separate them by commas instead of tabs.

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