Convert CSV, TSV and TXT to Excel

Opening CSV Files

Comma Separated Values (CSV) files contain records whose values are delimited or separated by commas. In CSV files, data is stored in a tabular format that has fields separated by the comma character and quoted by the double-quote character. If a field’s value contains a double quote character it is escaped with a pair of double-quote characters. You can also use Microsoft Excel to export your spreadsheet data to a CSV file.

To open CSV files, use the LoadOptions class and select the CSV value, predefined in the LoadFormat enumeration.

Example

// For complete examples and data files, please go to https://github.com/aspose-cells/Aspose.Cells-for-Java
// The path to the documents directory.
String dataDir = Utils.getSharedDataDir(OpeningCSVFiles.class) + "loading_saving/";
// Opening CSV Files
// Creating and CSV LoadOptions object
LoadOptions loadOptions4 = new LoadOptions(LoadFormat.CSV);

// Creating an Workbook object with CSV file path and the loadOptions
// object
Workbook workbook6 = new Workbook(dataDir + "Book_CSV.csv", loadOptions4);

// Print message
System.out.println("CSV format workbook has been opened successfully.");

Opening CSV files and replacing invalid characters

In Excel, when CSV file with special characters is opened, the characters are automatically replaced. The same is done by Aspose.Cells API which is demonstrated in the code example given below.

Example

// For complete examples and data files, please go to https://github.com/aspose-cells/Aspose.Cells-for-Java
//Source directory
String dataDir = Utils.getSharedDataDir(OpeningCSVFilesAndReplacingInvalidCharacters.class) + "LoadingSavingConvertingAndManaging/";
        
LoadOptions loadOptions = new LoadOptions(LoadFormat.CSV);

//Load CSV file
Workbook workbook = new Workbook(dataDir + "[20180220142533][ASPOSE_CELLS_TEST].csv", loadOptions);

System.out.println(workbook.getWorksheets().get(0).getName()); // (20180220142533)(ASPOSE_CELLS_T
System.out.println(workbook.getWorksheets().get(0).getName().length()); // 31
System.out.println("CSV file opened successfully!");

Opening CSV files using preferred parser

This is not always necessary to use default parser settings for opening the CSV files. Sometimes importing CSV file does not create expected output like date format is not as expected or empty fields are handled differently. For this purpose TxtLoadOptions.PreferredParsers is available to provide own preferred parser to parse different data types as per the requirement. Following sample code demonstrates the usage of the preferred parser.  

Sample source file and output files can be downloaded from the following links for testing this feature.

samplePreferredParser.csv

outputsamplePreferredParser.xlsx

Example

// For complete examples and data files, please go to https://github.com/aspose-cells/Aspose.Cells-for-Java
class TextParser implements ICustomParser
{
	@Override
	public Object parseObject(String s) {
		return s;
	}

	@Override
	public String getFormat() {
		return "";
	}
}

class DateParser implements ICustomParser {
	@Override
	public Object parseObject(String s) {
		Date myDate = null;
		SimpleDateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy");
		try {
			myDate = formatter.parse(s);
		} catch (ParseException e) {
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
		return myDate;
	}

	@Override
	public String getFormat() {
		return "dd/MM/yyyy";
	}
}

public class OpeningCSVFilesWithPreferredParser {

	//Source directory
	private static String sourceDir = Utils.Get_SourceDirectory();
	private static String outputDir = Utils.Get_OutputDirectory();

	public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

		// Initialize Text File's Load options
		TxtLoadOptions oTxtLoadOptions = new TxtLoadOptions(LoadFormat.CSV);

		// Specify the separatot character
		oTxtLoadOptions.setSeparator(',');

		// Specify the encoding scheme
		oTxtLoadOptions.setEncoding(Encoding.getUTF8());

		// Set the flag to true for converting datetime data
		oTxtLoadOptions.setConvertDateTimeData(true);

		// Set the preferred parsers
		oTxtLoadOptions.setPreferredParsers(new ICustomParser[] { new TextParser(), new DateParser() });

		// Initialize the workbook object by passing CSV file and text load options
		Workbook oExcelWorkBook = new Workbook(sourceDir + "samplePreferredParser.csv", oTxtLoadOptions);

		// Get the first cell
		Cell oCell = oExcelWorkBook.getWorksheets().get(0).getCells().get("A1");

		// Display type of value
		System.out.println("A1: " + getCellType(oCell.getType()) + " - " + oCell.getDisplayStringValue());

		// Get the second cell
		oCell = oExcelWorkBook.getWorksheets().get(0).getCells().get("B1");

		// Display type of value
		System.out.println("B1: " + getCellType(oCell.getType()) + " - " + oCell.getDisplayStringValue());

		// Save the workbook to disc
		oExcelWorkBook.save(outputDir + "outputsamplePreferredParser.xlsx");

		System.out.println("OpeningCSVFilesWithPreferredParser executed successfully.\r\n");
	}

	private static String getCellType(int type){
		if(type == CellValueType.IS_STRING){
			return "String";
		} else if(type == CellValueType.IS_NUMERIC){
			return "Numeric";
		} else if(type == CellValueType.IS_BOOL){
			return "Bool";
		} else if(type == CellValueType.IS_DATE_TIME){
			return "Date";
		} else if(type == CellValueType.IS_NULL){
			return "Null";
		} else if(type == CellValueType.IS_ERROR){
			return "Error";
		} else{
			return "Unknown";
		}
	}

Opening TSV(Tab Delimited) Files

Tab-delimited files contain spreadsheet data but without any formatting. Data is arranged in rows and columns such as tables and spreadsheets. Shortly, a tab-delimited file is a special kind of plain text file with a tab between each column in the text.

To open tab-delimited files, developers should use the LoadOptions class and select the TSV value, predefined in the LoadFormat enumeration.

Example

// For complete examples and data files, please go to https://github.com/aspose-cells/Aspose.Cells-for-Java
// The path to the documents directory.
String dataDir = Utils.getSharedDataDir(OpeningTabDelimitedFiles.class) + "loading_saving/";

// Creating and TAB_DELIMITED LoadOptions object
LoadOptions loadOptions5 = new LoadOptions(LoadFormat.TSV);

// Creating an Workbook object with Tab Delimited text file path and the
// loadOptions object
Workbook workbook7 = new Workbook(dataDir + "Book1TabDelimited.txt", loadOptions5);

// Print message
System.out.println("Tab Delimited workbook has been opened successfully.");

Advance topics

• Load or Import CSV file with Formulas
• Trim Leading Blank Rows and Columns while exporting spreadsheets to CSV format