How to Convert Excel File to CSV Format (5 Easy Ways)

We’ll use the following Excel file as our source, which contains a sales report of a company. We’ll transform Excel worksheets into separate CSV files.

Method 1 – Convert Excel to CSV Format Through Save As

• Open the Excel workbook and the desired sheet.
• Click on File.
• Select Save As.

• In the Save As window, click the drop-down icon as shown below and choose the CSV (Comma delimited) option.

• Press Save.
• This will create a CSV file, which is shown in the following picture.

• To get all the sheets in the CSV format, repeat the process for each worksheet.

NOTE: After pressing Save, you’ll get a warning dialog box. It reminds you that only the active worksheet will get converted to a CSV file.

Method 2 – Transform Excel to CSV UTF-8 without Destroying Special Characters

Steps:

• We have a Salesman’s name in Korean. This won’t be saved in the CSV file.

• Press Save.
• Excel will create a new CSV file for the desired sheet, and you’ll see the special character in that CSV file.

Method 3 – Excel File to CSV UTF-16 Conversion

Steps:

• Open the Excel worksheet.
• Press Save As in the File window.
• Select Unicode Text from the drop-down list.

• Press Save. You’ll get a .txt file.
• Open the text file and click Save As.
• A dialog box will pop out.
• Type .csv at the end of the file name and choose All Files in the Save as type.
• Select UTF-16 LE in the Encoding field and press Save.

• You’ll get a CSV file that contains the special characters correctly.

Method 4 – Use Google Spreadsheets for Turning Excel Files into CSV

STEPS:

• Select the Excel workbook and press Import data.

• You’ll get the file in the spreadsheet.
• Select File, then choose Download and pick Comma Separated Values (.csv).

• Open the downloaded file.
• You’ll get a new CSV file.

Method 5 – Apply VBA to Change Multiple Excel Sheets to the CSV Format

Steps:

• Select any sheet and right-click on the sheet name at the bottom.
• Select View Code.

• The VBA window will emerge and a code box will appear.
• Copy the below code and paste it into the code box.

Sub MultipleSheetsCSV() Dim st As Worksheet Dim path As String Application.ScreenUpdating = False path = ActiveWorkbook.path & "\" & Left(ActiveWorkbook.Name, InStr(ActiveWorkbook.Name, ".") - 1) For Each st In Worksheets st.Copy ActiveWorkbook.SaveAs Filename:=path & "_" & st.Name & ".csv", FileFormat:=xlCSV, CreateBackup:=False ActiveWorkbook.Close False Next Application.ScreenUpdating = True End Sub

• Save the file.
• Press F5.
• The code will create separate CSV files for each worksheet in that workbook.

Download the Practice Workbook