Are Libre Office CSV exports different from MS Excel CSV exports?

[ck234]

I am trying to export data from a lo calc spreadsheet to an accounting program (Kashflow) via csv files.

Kashflow uses a web app “csv importer” to upload csv files. Their support team tell me that using CSV files generated using MS Excel, the upload runs smoothly (during which you can map columns etc). However, when I try to upload a csv file created using Lo, the columns and rows get a bit messed up, and the upload is inaccurate.

I have played around with various csv options - the Kashflow team tell me that all that is required is that the data is delimited by columns.

I am not entirely sure that this is just a lo problem. It may be a windows versus linux problem.

Has anyone come across this before?

Thanks in advance, Cahir

[qubit1]

Hi @ck234,

In general, CSV files are pretty consistent. The primary things that can change in them include:

• Field delimiters (Comma, TAB, etc…)
• Line endings (Newline, Carriage Return, Both)
• Methods of quoting (No quoting, Double-quotes, etc…)
• File encoding (ASCII, UTF-8, etc…)

I am not entirely sure that this is just a lo problem. It may be a windows versus linux problem.

Hmm…perhaps Kashflow can’t handle files with UNIX-style line endings. Do you know how to convert a file to DOS-style line endings?

If you can get your hands on a file that works and a file that doesn’t work, you could try comparing them side-by-side.

[The_Schmidtsu]

I had the same problem with mine also exporting csv with unix line endings. I used unix2dos (part of the dos2unix package) to convert the line endings and they work fine after that on the webserver.