Changing the separators in a CSV file has its pitfalls as soon as the same character is also contained in the field contents. Here is the solution...
Practical example
I am about to change the provider of my web store. I was able to successfully export the existing articles with all the details from my previous store as a CSV file. The new provider also supports the import of CSV files, which saves me a lot of time and errors by copying the product details by hand. During the first test import, however, I noticed that my new web store expects a tab instead of a comma as a separator in the CSV file.
No problem - I just open the CSV file in Notepad++ and replace all the commas with a tab.
On importing again, I was alarmed to discover that all the commas used as punctuation marks in the article descriptions have been replaced by a tab too.
But how can I adjust the separators of the CSV structure without changing the field contents? Thanks to a tip from a friend, I got to find the helpful tool «smasi CSV-Wizard»...
Replace separator with smasi CSV Wizard
With the special CSV editor «smasi CSV-Wizard», the field separators in the CSV structure can be easily changed with just a few mouse clicks:
Tutorial:
Start the smasi CSV Wizard
Apply function directly
Call the feature 'Alter CSV Format'
Select file(s)
Briefly check the determined CSV format
Define the new field separator
Execute processing
The separator in the selected CSV files is changed correctly in just a few seconds. Smart and simple.
Two useful tips
Change separator in several CSV files at once
If required, you can also convert the CSV format for several CSV files at the same time in a single step. Smart and simple.
Convert CSV to TSV file
By the way, if the target platform requires a TSV file instead of a CSV file, the procedure is identical. TSV simply means "tab-separated-values" and is also a pure text file like the CSV file. After changing the separators to tabulator - as described above - you only need to change the file extension from ".csv" to ".tsv". That's already all!