Excel CSV to JSON
Excel is the most common source of CSV files in the wild and it has its own quirks that simpler converters stumble on.
Native JSON tool
CSV to JSON
BOM stripping
Locale detection
Trailing column prune
Browser-only run
- Cost
- Free tier
- Sign-up
- Not required
- Processing
- Tool-specific
- Privacy
- Clearly disclosed
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Excel-specific quirks the converter handles for you
Excel writes UTF-8 CSV files with a byte order mark (BOM) at the start by default on Windows. The BOM is three bytes (EF BB BF) that signal UTF-8 encoding but are not part of the actual data. Naive parsers that read the first character as part of the first header end up with a garbled first column key like Name instead of Name. FixTools detects and strips the BOM silently before parsing so the first header reads cleanly. This is a tiny issue that breaks downstream consumers in surprising ways, and handling it automatically eliminates a common source of frustration.
Excel in non-US locales exports with locale-specific delimiters. German, French, Spanish, and Italian installations use comma as the decimal separator inside numbers, which means CSV field separators must be semicolons to avoid ambiguity. A file exported from German Excel might look like Name;Alter;Gehalt with semicolons as delimiters and decimal numbers written as 1.234,56. The auto-detector picks up the semicolon delimiter, but the decimal format remains as text because JSON has no locale awareness. For numeric output, convert decimal commas to periods in the spreadsheet before exporting.
Excel quoting follows RFC 4180 closely. Fields containing commas, line breaks, or double quotes are wrapped in double quotes, and embedded double quotes are escaped by doubling. FixTools implements the same rules so Excel files round-trip cleanly. One Excel-specific quirk: very long cells with line breaks are sometimes wrapped in three layers of quotes due to copy-paste artifacts; the parser handles these cases by recognising the outer quote pair correctly.
Excel auto-formats some values during export in ways that surprise downstream consumers. Long numeric strings that look like phone numbers or IDs may be converted to scientific notation. Dates may be reformatted from text into Excel date serial numbers. Leading zeros on postcodes may be stripped. None of these is fixable at the conversion step because the original information is already gone in the exported file. The fix is to set affected cells as Text format in Excel before exporting, or to wrap them in quotes manually in the cell content.
How to use this tool
Save your Excel sheet as CSV UTF-8, paste or upload, and the converter handles BOMs, semicolons, and Excel quoting automatically.
How It Works
Step-by-step guide to excel csv to json:
- 1
Save as CSV from Excel
In Excel, choose File then Save As and select CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) or CSV (Comma delimited) depending on your version. The UTF-8 variant preserves non-ASCII characters correctly.
- 2
Load into the converter
Open the FixTools converter and paste the file contents or upload the .csv file. The tool strips any BOM automatically and detects the delimiter.
- 3
Confirm detected delimiter
Check the delimiter badge. For US English Excel it will be comma; for European locales it will be semicolon. Override if needed using the delimiter selector.
- 4
Convert and review
Click Convert. Scan the preview for any cells that look wrong, particularly long numeric strings that Excel may have converted to scientific notation.
- 5
Download the JSON
Copy or download the result. The output uses UTF-8 encoding with no BOM, matching the convention for JSON files served over HTTP.
Real-world examples
Common situations where this approach makes a real difference:
US English Excel export to API
A sales analyst exports a contact list from Excel for Microsoft 365, saves as CSV UTF-8, and converts in FixTools. The JSON array goes directly to the marketing automation API in a single batch request.
German Excel with semicolons
A Berlin-based developer exports a CSV from Excel in German locale. The file uses semicolons and commas inside numbers. Auto-detection picks the semicolon delimiter and the conversion works on the first try.
Excel Online quick conversion
A consultant downloads a CSV from a shared Excel Online workbook and converts it without opening it in desktop Excel. The browser-based tool fits the cloud-native workflow.
Phone numbers and IDs preservation
A user exports a list with phone numbers that Excel formatted as text via the Text format option. After conversion, the phone numbers retain their leading zeros and full digits instead of being converted to scientific notation.
When to use this guide
When your CSV came from Microsoft Excel, Excel for Mac, or Excel Online.
Pro tips
Get better results with these expert suggestions:
Always pick CSV UTF-8 from Save As
In Excel, the plain CSV option uses the system encoding which can be Windows-1252 or another non-UTF-8 codepage. CSV UTF-8 preserves non-ASCII characters like accented letters and emoji. Always use UTF-8 unless the consumer specifically requires another encoding.
Format ID columns as Text before exporting
To preserve leading zeros on postcodes, account numbers, and IDs, set the column format to Text in Excel before typing the values. This prevents Excel from interpreting them as numbers and silently stripping zeros.
Avoid scientific notation on long numbers
Numeric strings longer than 15 digits get converted to scientific notation by Excel on display, which is preserved in CSV export. Format such columns as Text before entering data, or prefix the value with an apostrophe to force text mode.
Use Get Data for round-tripping
If you need to edit the JSON output in Excel later, use the Get Data feature to import JSON files. This preserves the structure better than copy-paste and lets you round-trip CSV-JSON-CSV without progressive data loss.
Frequently asked questions
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