What is CSV? Easily explained

In office or email programs, you can often export data records as a CSV file. We explain what the format is and what alternatives there are.

CSV: file format for simple data structures

• With CSV you can easily save or export tables, databases or address books, for example.
• In OpenOffice, for example, tables can be exported as CSV (see screenshot).
• You can edit and change CSV files with all common text editors. A semicolon or a comma is often used to separate the data records. Hence the name: CSV stands for "Comma Separated Values".
• The file format has one shortcoming: There is no generally applicable standard, which can lead to incompatibilities.
• Here, the XML file format is slightly ahead of the CSV format: there is a uniform standard and you can describe more complex data structures more easily.