Excel to CSV Converter
Free Excel to CSV Converter: use File ▸ Save As (or Save a Copy), pick "CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) (*.csv)" as the file type, and save — only the...
Choose a .xlsx file — the first worksheet is converted.
How it works
In Excel or Google Sheets, use File ▸ Save As (or Save a Copy), pick "CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) (*.csv)" as the file type, and save — only the ACTIVE worksheet is exported, and formulas are replaced by their current values.
Click the worksheet you want to export — CSV saves only the active sheet.
File ▸ Save As, choose "CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) (*.csv)".
Confirm the prompt about keeping only the active sheet.
Or skip Excel entirely: drop the .xlsx into the converter above and download the CSV.
What this does
CSV is plain text: one row per line, cells separated by a delimiter. Saving as CSV therefore throws away everything that is not a value — formatting, formulas, charts, extra sheets, and data types. That is usually the point (maximum compatibility), but it means the conversion is one-way: keep the original .xlsx if you still need the workbook features.
A worked example
A workbook has the active sheet Orders with 200 rows and a Pivot sheet. Saving as CSV UTF-8 produces orders.csv with exactly the 200 rows of Orders as text — the pivot sheet, the currency formatting, and the =SUM() row all disappear; the SUM cell contains its last calculated number instead. CSV is the lingua franca of data import — CRMs, banks, databases, and scripts all accept it. Exporting cleanly (UTF-8, right delimiter) avoids broken umlauts and shifted columns on the receiving side.
Common mistakes
- Picking the legacy "CSV (Comma delimited)" instead of CSV UTF-8, which mangles ä, é, and other non-ASCII characters.
- Expecting all sheets in the file — CSV holds exactly one.
- Re-opening the CSV and being surprised formulas are gone; they were exported as values.
- Leading zeros (007) lost when the CSV is re-opened in Excel — import the column as text instead.
FAQ
Why does my exported CSV show semicolons instead of commas?
Excel uses your system list separator. On many European locales that is ";". The converter above lets you pick comma, semicolon, or tab explicitly.
How do I export every sheet of the workbook?
Save each sheet separately (CSV is single-sheet), or use a script/Power Query to batch-export.
Why do my dates look like numbers (e.g. 45443) in the CSV?
Date cells store serial numbers; some exports emit the raw serial. Use our date serial converter, or format the column as text dates before exporting.