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Keeping commas inside cells while exporting csv

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Alba_Machado2
7 - App Architect
7 - App Architect

So CSV has proven to be a problem for me. I downloaded a CSV file from Homebase, the database my dad used before either of us had ever heard of Airtable, and his product description cells were separated out because of all the commas within. How do I prevent that from happening with Airtable? I’m currently combing through my dad’s 50,000+ records to cut-and-paste clauses back into their origin cells and it is a complete nightmare. It’s not something I can do every time I download a CSV file from Airtable. Please, oh please, tell me there’s a way to avoid getting cells separated out because they’re long text fields with product descriptions that include commas. :fearful:

2 Replies 2

Yeah, depending on how the CSV file is created, CSV files sometimes don’t play nicely with long text that includes things like line breaks, commas, internal quotes, etc.

Can you export from Homebase directly to Excel format without going through CSV? They copy/paste from Excel to Airtable? I’ve had to do some multi-step conversion processes like this when CSV just wouldn’t play nice.

Since I’m halfway through cleaning up this CSV, I’m planning to copy/paste one field/column at a time into Airtable. I’m more worried about what will happen when I download the CSV file from Airtable so that I can upload it to Amazon and other marketplaces.