Convert-to from csv to ods and viceversa

[mrta]

I have this problem. A “.csv” file where delimiter is tab and content is a “Little-endian UTF-16 Unicode text”
If i try to open it with gui in libreoffice my true settings are

Charset: Unicode
Language: Default - English (USA)
From row: 1
Separated by: tab, comma

via shel i’m trying

unoconv -f ods -e FilterOptions=“59/44,34,UNICODE,1” [FILE]

but the result is a file with wrong separation.
What’s wrong?

And what’s is the best shell command in order to convert this ods to file to a well generated csv (Unicode UTF8, comma separated, ecc.)?

I have tried to use LibreOffice from the Command line to convert from CSV file to Excel.While the software works great while using the GUI; it does not recognise Unicode characters, or semicolon delimited fields, and the output is only one chunk of data ( one column). How should I write my comenad line to let LibreOffice know I am using “;” as delimiter in a Unicode CSV file ?
My command is:
“C:\Program Files\LibreOffice 4\program\soffice.exe” --headless --convert-to xls --outdir “C:\DBA\scripts\CSV-to-Excel” “C:\DBA\scripts\CSV-to-Excel\CSV_file.csv”
The output leaves a blank row in between two rows, and does not properly respect Unicode characters. The data ins left in only one column

[karolus]

59/44 stand for separated by ; or , try with 9 instead

[mrta]

With unoconv -f ods -e FilterOptions=“9,34,UNICODE,1” is the same

[cloph]

FYI: I merged a question re saving as xls from csv to this one, so don’t be suprised that some of the answeres refer to Excel export filter

[aseques]

This functionality is pretty cryptic and the best documentation unfortunately is from openoffice
here but basically what you need is to lauch this command:

soffice --headless --convert-to xlsx:“Calc MS Excel 2007 XML” --infilter=“csv:59,34,UTF8” file.csv

This will generate a file.xlsx with the proper content. Some important remarks:

• Do not add the output file name, it’s guessed automatically from the input, and it will give errors
• The first value after the : is the ASCII code for the separator (59 is ;, 45 is - and so on…)
• The second value is the text quoting (34 is ", 44 is ’ and so on…)

This are the basics

[aseques]

If the origin file has ‘.’ as the decimal separator a 1033 in the 6th place should be added to the filter (–infilter=“csv:59,34,UTF8,1033”)

[mikekaganski]

The CSV import/export filter flags for OpenOffice/LibreOffice is best described here.

There’s no mention of endianness setting there. However, I suppose that Unicode UCS2 option mentioned on that page is OK for little-endian UTF-16.

So my suggestion would be

soffice --infilter="CSV:9/44,34,65535,1,,1033" --convert-to csv:"Text - txt - csv (StarCalc)":9,34,76,1,1 -outdir <some-another-dir> file.csv

[NicoVanLeeuwen]

Hi Mike, I’ve been trying to figure out all the options you have used on the --infilter but have a hard time finding the right info about this. Would you be so kind to point me to a place where I can find an explanation for these options? Especially the 65535 and 1033 were hard to find.
Thanks in advance !

[mikekaganski]

@NicoVanLeeuwen: did you look carefully at the answer you commented? It has the link to the information you asked - right in the first sentence (last word of it); and searching for both 1033 and 65535 on that page brings you to the places where those values are explained. Or did you have another issue? Then be specific please.

[JohnHa]

Open the csv file (rename it to fred.csv if necessary). Choose the semi-colon separator.

NEVER save as a csv file or as a .xls or .xlsx file - always save as . .ods as you may lose data and/or formatting.

You may have switched off the warning LO gives you - switch it back on in Options.

Please upload a small example file so it can be tested.