The format every import tool asks for
Sooner or later something wants a CSV. Accounting packages, CRMs, mailing platforms, database loaders and analytics tools all take plain rows and refuse a workbook. CSV is the closest thing tabular data has to a universal language, precisely because it carries nothing beyond the values.
That stripping down is the feature, not a loss. Colours, merged cells, charts and formulas are exactly what confuses an importer, so they are dropped and the calculated values are written out instead. The result is UTF-8, so accented and non-Latin text arrives intact.
Common uses
- Bulk imports into a CRM or accounting system.
- Database loads where the loader takes delimited text only.
- Mailing lists prepared for an email platform.
- Handing data to a script that should not have to parse a workbook.
Need the workbook back afterwards? CSV to Excel rebuilds proper columns. When the numbers need to be read rather than imported, Excel to PDF freezes the formatting, and PDF to Excel recovers a table someone sent you the wrong way round.