Convert many CSV Files to XLSX or ODS Spreadsheets

Suppose you have a very large amount of CSV files that you want to convert into Office documents. For example, in XLSX files for Microsoft Excel or in Open Document Spreadsheets (ODS) for OpenOffice or LibreOffice.

Of course, you could open each file individually in one of these programs in order to save it as XLSX or ODS. However, especially when there are a lot of files, this task can not only be very monotonous, but also very time-consuming. For this reason, in this tutorial, I would like to show you a way with which you can carry out this type of transformation quickly, easily and in a time-saving manner for any number of files at the same time.

We use the program TextConverter for this, in which we only have to carry out the following three steps for the conversion:

1. First, we add the CSV files we want to convert to the file list in the TextConverter. To do this, we can simply drag the files or entire folders onto the program (or alternatively, of course, open them in the program).
2. Second, we go to the Storage Options at the bottom right and first select the option "Save as new file" and then "XLSX" or "ODS" as file extension. We can choose any storage location as folder and as name, for example, the placeholder "%name%". With this placeholder, the old name of the file is adopted - so "data.csv" becomes "data.xlsx" or "data.ods". Of course, we can also choose any other name for the files or combine placeholders with any other characters.
3. As a third and final step, we click on the button "Convert and Save" to convert and save all CSV files that are currently in the file list into our desired Office format.

Normally, these three steps are sufficient for the conversion - unless your CSV data has an unusual format or you want to change the original data before converting. We'll look at both in the next sections.

Format of the CSV Files

By default, the TextConverter is configured so that it can automatically detect the format of the CSV files. This means, for example, that it doesn't matter whether your CSV files use a semicolon, a comma or a tab as its field separator.

Nevertheless, it is also possible to read CSV files in a user-defined format or to force a specific format. You can find the settings for this on the right side of the main window in the actions under CSV > Import Format.

Adjustment of the CSV Files before Conversion

Also if you want to change the structure or the content of the CSV files before conversion, the TextConverter offers you some options in the area Actions > CSV.

With the help of these functions it is possible, for example, to carry out replacements in fields, to trim fields, to prepend, append or insert text, to add further columns, to convert the values of fields or to rotate or mirror the entire data.

It is also possible to delete individual columns or rows. If you don't want to copy all the columns from the original file into your Office document, you can choose the option "CSV > Delete Columns"; if you don't want to copy all of the rows, you can use the action "Lines > Delete Lines".

These are just a few examples. Of course, you can also make use of all the other actions from the TextConverter to edit the original files.

Conversion to other Office Formats

By the way, with the Text Converter, you can not only convert text files into XLSX or ODS spreadsheets but also, for example, transform text files into other Office files such as DOCX or ODT documents. The basic principle is the same as described here.