Intact CSV Editor vs Microsoft Excel for CSV files
Excel is a superb spreadsheet. But a spreadsheet interprets what it opens — and a data file is not a calculation. Here is what that means for your CSV files, and when to use which.
What happens between opening and saving.
Switch between the tabs: the file on disk, what a spreadsheet's default import makes of it, and what comes back from Intact CSV Editor — with the checksum of each saved file.
customers.csv · 231 bytesThe file as it arrives. UTF-8, comma-separated, CRLF, one name in quotes.
customer_no,name,city,order_id,portion,code␍␊ 00731,"Zäch, Söhne & Co.",Zürich,202609100000012345,1/2,SEPT1␍␊ 00732,Brönnimann GmbH,Genève,202609100000012346,3/4,MARCH1␍␊ 00733,Talwind Energie AG,Chur,202609100000012347,1/8,1E5␍␊
231 bytes · UTF-8 · CRLF · 5 characters outside ASCII
What a spreadsheet's default settings can make of it. Red: changed.
| customer_no | name | city | order_id | portion | code | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||||||
| 2 | ||||||
| 3 | Talwind Energie AG | Chur |
16 of 18 values changed
Opened, edited or not, and saved. Green: kept.
| customer_no | name | city | order_id | portion | code | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 00731 | Zäch, Söhne & Co. | Zürich | 202609100000012345 | 1/2 | SEPT1 |
| 2 | 00732 | Brönnimann GmbH | Genève | 202609100000012346 | 3/4 | MARCH1 |
| 3 | 00733 | Talwind Energie AG | Chur | 202609100000012347 | 1/8 | 1E5 |
0 of 18 values changed · detected: UTF-8, comma, CRLF, header row
Illustration using a spreadsheet's default import settings and a wrong guess at the encoding. Recent versions of Microsoft 365 let you switch some conversions off.
Excel and Intact CSV Editor, for data files.
| Microsoft Excel (default settings) | Intact CSV Editor | |
|---|---|---|
| Opening a CSV | ||
| Leading zeros | Removed by default: 00731 becomes 731 | Kept: 00731 |
| Date-like values | Converted by default: 1/2 becomes 2-Jan, SEPT1 becomes 1-Sep | Kept as written |
| Numbers of 16 digits or more | Rounded to 15 digits, shown in scientific notation | Every digit kept |
| Encoding | UTF-8 without a byte-order mark is often misread | 80+ encodings detected, BOM or not |
| Separator | Depends on your region settings | Detected from the file itself |
| Rows | At most 1,048,576 per sheet | Millions; your Mac's memory is the limit |
| Saving a CSV | ||
| What is written | The values as Excel displays them, in its own dialect | The original bytes, except where you edited |
| Quoting, line endings, BOM | Excel's own | The file's own, unless you change them |
| A character the encoding cannot hold | Can become a question mark in a legacy encoding | The save stops and names it |
| Working with data | ||
| Queries across files | Power Query, in its own M language | MySQL-flavoured SQL over every open file |
| Compare two files | Spreadsheet Compare, with some Office editions for Windows | Built in, by key column, character by character |
| Column rules and validation | Data validation on cell ranges | Rules per column, suggested from the data |
| Formats | Excel, CSV, text, XML, PDF, OpenDocument and more | 30+ in, 33 out — Parquet, SPSS, Stata, EBCDIC … |
| Formulas, charts, formatting | Yes — it is a spreadsheet | No — a CSV cannot hold them |
| Where it runs | ||
| Platforms | Windows, Mac, the web, iPhone, iPad, Android | Mac |
| Collaboration | Co-authoring through OneDrive and SharePoint | Files stay on your Mac |
Excel: Excel specifications and limits, Set automatic data conversions and Keeping leading zeros and large numbers, Microsoft Support, read 10 September 2026. Recent versions of Microsoft 365 let you switch off several automatic conversions.
XChoose Excel if…
- you need formulas, charts, conditional formatting or pivot tables Excel itself can refresh;
- you work with colleagues in the same workbook at the same time;
- you are on Windows, the web or a phone.
Choose Intact CSV Editor if…
- the file must go back to another system exactly as it came — codes, dates, digits, encoding and all;
- files have more than a million rows, or arrive as Parquet, SPSS, Stata or EBCDIC;
- you want to check, clean, compare and query data rather than calculate with it.
Excel and CSV files
Can Excel keep leading zeros in a CSV?
Yes, if you import the file (Data ▸ From Text/CSV) and set the columns to Text, or switch off the removal of leading zeros under Automatic Data Conversion — on a Mac in Excel ▸ Preferences ▸ Edit. A colleague who double-clicks the file with default settings still loses them.
Is Intact CSV Editor a replacement for Excel?
No, and it does not try to be. Excel is a spreadsheet — formulas, charts, formatting. Intact CSV Editor is for the data files themselves: opening them without damage, checking and cleaning them, and sending them on intact. Many people use both.
What is the row limit in Excel?
1,048,576 rows and 16,384 columns per worksheet.
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