How to open CSV file in Excel with columns automatically Windows 10

The behavior of Excel when opening CSV files heavily depends on your local settings and the used list separator under Region and language » Formats » Advanced. By default Excel will assume every CSV was saved with that separator. Which is true as long as the CSV doesn't come from another country!

If your customers are in other countries, they may see other results then you think.

For example, here you see that a German Excel will use semicolon instead of comma like in the U.S

To confuse you even more, that setting interferes with the decimal symbol which can be separately set up under Excel Options » Advanced » Use system separators or via regional settings as shown above. Excel can't use the same symbol as decimal tab and list separator. It will automatically use comma or semicolon as a backup separator. Read more

I will take your example to create 3 files. Each with a different separator and open it with Excel.

    COMMA               SEMICOLON                     TAB 

Not the same as your Excel does? I thought so.

So lets manually change the extension from the same CSV files to XLS and look what happens now. First, Excel will throw up a warning that the file extension doesn't match the content and Excel tries to guess whats inside.

    COMMA        SEMICOLON                   TAB 

Conclusion: TAB + renaming + ignore warning = Win on every system?
Maybe, but I wouldn't be so sure for customers outside your own country.

The best method is to instruct your customers to first open a blank Excel and then go to Data » Get data from text and manually select comma as separator

ResRequest sends data as CSV files and these are best viewed in Excel so you probably want to set these files to open automatically in Excel. We’ll guide you through this simple set up to save you time!

CSV files are text documents where the data is separated by a delimiter, or a character used to specify the boundary between fields, such as comma. ResRequest will use a comma to define different fields of data in it’s system but this is difficult to read if you open it in a text editor and so displaying in columns such as Excel makes mapping this data easier to read.

Setting these files to open by default in Excel is simple – let’s get started.

How to set Excel as the default program on a PC

Click on Start in the Taskbar on your Windows desktop.

Choose Default Programs in the left menu.

Click ‘Associate a file type or protocol with a program’.

Scroll through the list of file types until you locate the CSV option, then click it once to highlight it in blue.

Click the ‘Change program’ button at the top of the window.

Click the Microsoft Excel option under ‘Recommended Programs’, then click the OK button.

From the list of ‘Recommended Programs’, choose Excel.

Any CSV file you click to open with now open in Excel automatically. If you don’t want to open it in Excel, right click on the file and choose ‘Open with’ to select a different program.

How to set Excel as the default program on Mac

Right click on the CSV file in your Downloads folder.

Choose ‘Get Info’

Under ‘Open With’ choose ‘Excel.

Click ‘Change all’ and confirm your decision.’

How to set Excel as the default program on Windows 10

Step One: (Windows Key + S) opens up windows search. Search for Control panel. Once it pops up in the search, select it.

Step Three: Select Associate a file type.

We hope that this will help you to easily open and read all your ResRequest attachment downloads, but please don’t hesitate to contact our Support Centre with any queries.

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