I'm attempting to export the following to a CSV.
I'm getting mixed results for quotes on the CSV export. Note column 2 on the output. Some lines have the text field properly quoted and others are not. This is causing my import process in other programs to fail.
Very likely the problem is related to the fact that you have " within the value itself. Where you have " could you instead use in (the abbreviation for inches)?
SG
Yes, quotes are obviously the problem. They are not being handle properly. If the field is designated as text and contains a double quote is should be placed in quotes. It does this properly on lines 3 & 4. Then on line 5 it does not Then on 6 it does 7 & 8 it does not...
So the question to the OP is, can in (the inch abbreviation) be used instead of " ?
If so then problem solved, with no more fuss.
If not then have to resort to workarounds that involve varying degrees of pain.
(CSV in its many flavors is notorious for difficulties like this, with all sorts of apps. None, unfortunately, can get it perfect.)
SG
You may get better result if you select any cell the table you want to export, then select All, then copy, then paste into a text document, then save with the desired file name
Thanks all. Unfortunately I have many tables with thousands of lines that I need to export. I was hoping there was some preference I didn't know about to force the text to use a double quote format.
I will export to XLS and use something else the will give me consistent CSV output.
Thanks again.
Looking at the CSV image, not all quotes are quotes. Some are standard straight quotes, some are angled. That's probably the root cause. Maybe the app that imports it is treating both types as quotes whereas Numbers only considers the true quotes to be quotes. I would suggest doing a find/replace all in your Numbers document that changes them all to regular straight quotes, then try to export as CSV
Badunit wrote:
Looking at the CSV image, not all quotes are quotes. Some are standard straight quotes, some are angled. That's probably the root cause.
Your eyes are better than mine! 😉 Maybe there are curly quotes in there. It's possible that unchecking Smart Quotes in the Edit > Substitutions menu can reduce this kind of problem, though I don't think that will be much help for values already entered.
I've found from bitter experience that embedded quotes (whether straight or curly) and CSV often don't mix very well.
SG
Bingo! Never realized ANSI included left and right quotes, or for whatever reason Numbers inserted them and I will have to keep an eye on these subtle differences.
Find and replace of left and right quotes with standard quotes did the trick.
Thank you very much.
Go to the menu item Edit/Substitutions and turn off smart quotes. I see with Numbers 3 (or maybe it is OS X) that it doesn't do smart quote substitution correctly and consistently anyway so it makes a mess of things.
Export to CSV is not placing quotes around all text fields
