converting .ods to .csv file in LibreOffice Calc question
 

I have email lists in .csv files. Sometimes I need to copy email addresses from the .csv into a new Calc text document, which is .ods. When I "save as" it gives me the option to save as a .csv. But when I do the actual saving it gives me this popup window (screenshot) giving me the options to change the "field delimiter" and "text delimiter." I tracked this down https://help.libreoffice.org/Calc/Im...ting_CSV_Fileshttps://help.libreoffice.org/Calc/Im...ting_CSV_Files but it doesn't say what the options mean. This is my first experience with this and I just want to make sure when I send the list to the Mailchimp provdier the email lists function properly. My guess is to just go with the default, but I'd really rather not be guessing about this. Thanks.

As you see, you can separate the cells with a comma or other characters like a tab. Which does the provider require?

Also, since the resulting file is text, you can view it in an editor and actually see what it has used.

The default is the normal for CSV: commas between fields, text in double quotes. As you see, you can separate fields with tabs, or use single quotes, etc: it's up to you.

Thanks guys. It's still kind of confusing, though. Sometimes when I make changes in a .csv file and just click the save button it saves it as a .csv. Other times it gives me the popup window with the options to choose the text and field delimiters.

And there are no commas or quotation marks in any of my .csv files. And it just seems like lines separate the fields.

Second, when I experimented and changed the field and text delimiters I didn't notice any difference.

What am I missing?

The quotes only get used when there is something questionable in a cell that would confuse the parser otherwise. For example, if you have a comma separating the fields and then if you have a cell containing a comma, the quotes will be used around that cell, but probably skipped for all other cells.

Thanks for the explanation, Turbo. I experimented and put some commas in the email addresses and they weren't surrounded by quotation marks but they were gray-highlighted to make them stand out.

I think for my purposes though I'm okay just going with the default (when it comes to saving the.ods as a .csv).

Appreciate your help.

I haven't tried, but I think the quotes would only be used if there was at least one numeric field. The CSV mark-up is intended for import, where the application has to know what the fields are: you can mark the text with quotes, but it's difficult to see how the numbers could be identified.

are you sure you are looking at these csv files in a plain text editor?

CSV file
 

Provide us with a screen shot please of the CSV file's first 5 lines.

Considering csv stands for "comma separated variables", it's difficult to imagine a csv file without any commas.

Thanks David. I think I over-complicated this. The default works just fine.

No, I was looking at in LibreOffice Calc.

I really can't because it has people's email addresses. I'm pretty satisfied with the default anyway and am going to mark this thread as solved.

I thought so too! But the ones with the email addresses only have:

1)The email address
2) The first name
3) The last name.

Hence no commas anywhere.

Calling this one solved. I was over-analyzing this. The default is working fine for me.