Opening CSV Files

Apache OpenOffice 4.1 Calc Guide

Chapter 1: Introducing Calc

< Previous Section

Next Section >

• What is Calc?
• Spreadsheets, Sheets, and Cells
• Parts of the Main Calc Window
  • Menu Bar
  • Toolbars
    • Displaying or Hiding Toolbars
    • Palettes and Tear-off Toolbars
    • Moving Toolbars
    • Docking/Floating Windows and Toolbars
    • Customizing Toolbars
    • Formatting Toolbar
  • Formula Bar
  • Sidebar
  • Right-click (Context) Menus
  • Individual Cells
  • Sheet Tabs
  • Status Bar
• Starting New Spreadsheets
  • Starting a New Document from a Template
• Opening Existing Spreadsheets
• Opening CSV Files
• Saving Spreadsheets
  • Saving as a Microsoft Excel Document
  • Saving as a CSV File
  • Saving in Other Formats
• Password Protection
• Navigating within Spreadsheets
  • Going to a Particular Cell
  • Moving from Cell to Cell
    • Customizing the Effects of the Enter Key
  • Moving from Sheet to Sheet
• Selecting Items in a Sheet or Spreadsheet
  • Selecting Cells
  • Selecting Columns and Rows
  • Selecting Sheets
• Working with Columns and Rows
  • Inserting Columns and Rows
  • Deleting Columns and Rows
• Working with Sheets
  • Inserting New Sheets
  • Deleting Sheets
  • Renaming Sheets
• Viewing Calc
  • Using Zoom
  • Freezing Rows and Columns
  • Splitting the Screen
    • Splitting the Screen Horizontally
    • Splitting the Screen Vertically
    • Removing Split Views
• Using the Navigator
  • Moving Quickly through a Document
  • Choosing a Drag Mode
• Using Document Properties

< Previous Page

Next Page >

Opening CSV Files

Comma-separated-values (CSV) files are text files that contain the cell contents of a single sheet. Each line in a CSV file represents a row in a spreadsheet. Commas, semicolons, or other characters are used to separate the cells. Text is entered in quotation marks; numbers are entered without quotation marks.

To open a CSV file in Calc:

1. Choose File → Open.
2. Locate the CSV file that you want to open.
3. If the file has a *.csv extension, select the file and click Open.
4. If the file has another extension (for example, *.txt), select the file, select Text CSV (*csv;*txt) in the File type box (scroll down into the spreadsheet section to find it) and then click Open.
5. On the Text Import dialog (Figure 16), select the Separator options to divide the text in the file into columns.
   You can preview the layout of the imported data at the bottom of the dialog. Right-click a column in the preview to set the format or hide the column.
   If the CSV file uses a text delimiter character not in the Text delimiter list, click in the box, and type the character.
6. The Detect special numbers option is very helpful for importing numbers written with currency symbols or dates that will otherwise be treated as text.
7. Click  OK  to open the file.

Figure 16: Text Import dialog, with Comma (,) selected as the separator and double quotation mark (“) as the text delimiter.

If you do not select Text CSV (*csv;*txt) as the file type when opening the file, the document opens in Writer, not Calc.