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RFC-4180 compliant output
Values containing commas, quotes, or newlines are properly wrapped in "…"; embedded quotes are doubled. PostgreSQL COPY, Python csv, pandas, and Excel all import the result without errors.
Robust tab parsing per IANA text/tab-separated-values. CSV output is RFC-4180 compliant — quotes, commas, and newlines in values are properly escaped. Selectable target delimiter, optional BOM. Works with files or paste-from-clipboard.
File or clipboard text in, properly quoted CSV out.
or click to browse — .tsv, .tab, .txt
Robust against typical pitfalls, with the detail knowledge research workflows demand.
Values containing commas, quotes, or newlines are properly wrapped in "…"; embedded quotes are doubled. PostgreSQL COPY, Python csv, pandas, and Excel all import the result without errors.
Copying tables from a browser, Google Sheets, or Notion yields tab-delimited text. Paste it in, pick delimiter, get CSV — no roundtrip through a file.
TSV is standard in bioinformatics (BLAST, SAM headers, Galaxy) and statistics (R outputs, SPSS exports). We parse conservatively and deliver a CSV that any office or reporting tool understands.
For Excel double-click open you need the BOM, otherwise accented characters get misdecoded on first open. One checkbox — recipients don't have to use "Import text from file" anymore.
Comma as web standard, semicolon for European Excel, pipe for robust DB imports. The result matches your target pipeline without manual cleanup.
Patient data, genome sequences, study outputs — ethically and legally problematic to push through a cloud converter. With BrowserCrunch nothing leaves the browser. Privacy by design.
Three steps, two input modes.
Drop file (.tsv, .tab, .txt) or paste clipboard text.
Comma (default), semicolon (Europe), pipe (DB). Optional BOM.
RFC-4180 compliant file, ready for Excel, pandas, Postgres, etc.
Where TSV shows up most — and what you need the conversion for.
BLAST outputs (-outfmt 6), SAM headers, VCF annotations, Galaxy results are TSV throughout. To hand them to colleagues working in Excel, or for reports to study leadership, CSV is needed.
R exports (write.table(..., sep="\t")) are TSV. For sharing with non-R colleagues or embedding in Word reports, comma CSV is the more universal choice. Direct from the browser.
Common convention: TSV as intermediate format between Python scripts because tabs rarely appear in data. To hand to stakeholders, standard CSV — one click, no additional Python script.
Statistical software often exports result tables as TSV or tab-delimited TXT. For embedding in Excel reports or handing to IT (DB import), you need CSV.
Selecting and copying an HTML table puts tab-delimited text in your clipboard. Paste, convert, done — no detour through Google Sheets.
Many scientific data repositories (Dryad, Zenodo, US open-data portals) provide datasets as TSV. For processing in Excel/Power BI, CSV is the friendlier variant.
TSV uses tabs as delimiter, CSV typically uses commas (sometimes semicolons). TSV is more robust for data containing commas and quotes because tabs rarely appear in normal text — that's why scientists and DB admins like it. CSV is more widespread and the Excel default.
By IANA spec, a TSV value contains neither tabs nor newlines — TSV lacks the quote escaping that CSV has. If your file does contain values with tabs (some BLAST outputs), we parse conservatively; in the output CSV the field gets quote-escaped per RFC 4180.
Default comma — works for Python pandas, R, GitHub, US SaaS tools. For European Excel double-click open, pick semicolon. Pipe is useful when your data contains commas and semicolons — e.g. address fields or descriptions.
Input BOMs are stripped so the first column name isn't 'polluted'. On export you can optionally add a BOM — useful when the CSV will be double-clicked in Excel without going through 'import text from file'.
Yes. Instead of uploading a file you can paste tabular text into the text box. Browser copy-paste from a table typically yields tab-delimited text — we convert it straight to valid CSV.
Yes, 1:1. The first TSV row becomes the first CSV row. We don't interpret or transform headers — what goes in comes out.
Up to ~500,000 rows runs smoothly (TSV is very scan-efficient). For very large datasets (millions of rows), miller or csvkit on the terminal are more efficient — but for 99% of research and office workloads the browser is plenty.
No. Everything runs as JavaScript in your browser. Important in research (patient data, genome data) and business report post-processing — the file stays on your device.
Tab-Separated Values (TSV) is the preferred format in many research and data workflows because tabs rarely appear in normal data — unlike commas or semicolons. Bioinformatics pipelines (BLAST, SAMtools, Galaxy), statistical tools (R, SPSS, Stata), and Python scripts (pandas) often output TSV. Yet the receiving side — Excel, stakeholder reports, databases — usually wants CSV. Our converter handles that translation in the browser.
(1) Robustness: tabs rarely appear in plain text, so collisions with values containing the delimiter are rare. With CSV, "Austin, TX" or "1.5 m" causes constant quoting headaches. (2) Fast parsing: tab splits can be done without a state machine, which matters for huge datasets. (3) Tradition: many scientific formats (BLAST, SAM, Mothur, Galaxy) have been TSV since the 90s — switching would be work without benefit.
(1) Excel: TSV does open in Excel via double-click (with heuristic detection), but not reliably — CSV is safer. (2) SaaS tools: Mailchimp, Shopify, HubSpot, Stripe, and most web APIs expect CSV as the standard table format. (3) Ubiquity: CSV is registered as text/csv in IANA (RFC 4180), TSV as text/tab-separated-values — but CSV parsers are standard equipment in every language.
The core challenge in translating TSV to CSV is proper quoting: in the source (TSV) there are no quotes — all values are plain text. In the target (CSV) values containing commas, quotes, or newlines must be wrapped in quotes per RFC 4180. We handle that automatically. Additionally a UTF-8 BOM option for recipients who'll open the file in Excel via double-click.
An HTML table, a Google Sheets range, or a section from Notion — all copy as tab-delimited text to the clipboard. Instead of saving as file and uploading, a separate tab in the tool lets you paste directly. Saves three clicks and a file shuffle for ad-hoc conversions.
For datasets with several million rows, browser RAM becomes the bottleneck. The more efficient solution is then miller (mlr) or csvkit on the terminal — those stream line by line. For typical office and research workloads (up to ~500,000 rows) the browser is the more convenient tool because no install and no CLI knowledge required.
For the other direction: there's currently no dedicated "CSV to TSV" — but you can use our Excel-to-CSV converter and pick tab as delimiter. For office workflows: CSV to Excel. For developers: CSV to JSON and JSON to CSV. For reports: CSV as PDF table.