Text to column function

Open the CSV file with Numbers to do the trick.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE samedi 16 août 2008 12:35:49)

To add a bit to this, for best results, make sure that the CSV file has the extension ".csv" when you drop it on the Numbers application icon to open it. If it has (for instance) a .txt extension, each line of comma-separated values will appear in a single cell instead of one per column.

Since the file extension might be hidden, check it first with the Finder's "Get info" option, where you can see & change the extension even if otherwise hidden in the Finder views.

Thanks for this complementary info.
I must recognize that for me, name extension is part of the file name because it's the one allowing the operating system to "identify" it.
For instance, ask TextEdit to save a document as a text file.
Duplicate it then change the name extension of the duplicate from txt to csv.

Get Infos for both files.

For the .txt one I get Text Document
For the .csv one I get "Document OpenOffice.org 2.4.app"

From System.Events point of view,
the first one's type identifier is "public.plain-text"
the second's type identifier is "dyn.age80g650"

This is why I think that it is interesting to always activate the Finder's "display name extension" feature.
Of course it's only an opinion but I feel more safe when I know what kind of file I'm clicking on.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE samedi 16 août 2008 14:42:59)

What is sometimes called the "binding" of a file to an application has become a complex mechanism in OS X. Launch services uses file extensions; user preferences (the "always open with" option available in the get info panel); & other file system metadata, including the old legacy type & creator 4 character codes if included, to decide which application it would open in if its icon were double-clicked.

This is why the warning that pops up if you change a file's extension only says it "may" open in a another application. But it seems that Numbers only cares about the file extension when deciding how to convert CSV text files, so when necessary, the warning can be ignored if the extension is wrong or missing.

Which program built the original CSV file and in which country are you using it ?

My guess is that you are in a country using the comma as decimal separator and that the program built CSV files using the semi-colon as values separator.

If I am right, you are facing what I described many times here as an oddity.

I know that the CSV acronym means Comma Separated Values.
Numbers generates and decipher files matching exactly this "definition".

It just fail to take care to the fact that, in Europe, many programs, (even at least one edited by a 100% Apple subsidiary) create so called CSV files using the semi-colon because the comma is already used as decimal separator.

I hope (I already asked them for that) that they will play the game with more fairplay in the next revision allowing us to choose the separator to apply.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE samedi 16 août 2008 17:02:23)