Why do multiline cells in my CSV file appear with a question mark at the end of each line in Excel?

Posted by Chris Lindsay on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Chris Lindsay
Published on 2010-03-12T23:38:21Z Indexed on 2010/03/12 23:47 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 374

Filed under:

csv

|

excel

|

newline

I'm currently working on a project where we'd like to allow a user to export their data to CSV. Some of the data we present has multiple values for a single cell, and so we use the standard CSV method of putting each value on its own line:

Column A, Column B, Column C Value A, "Value B1 Value B2", Value C

Most of the time this works fine, but some people are reporting seeing a small question mark in a box character appear at the end of each line when they load the file in Excel. Why is this happening?

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about csv

DBD::CSV: How can I generate different behavior with the two f_ext-options ".csv" and ".csv/r"?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
This is from the DBD::File-documentation: f_ext This attribute is used for setting the file extension where (CSV) files are opened. There are several possibilities. DBI:CSV:f_dir=data;f_ext=.csv In this case, DBD::File will open only table.csv if both table.csv and table exist… >>> More
SUPER CSV write bean to CSV.

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Here is my class, public class FreebasePeopleResults { public String intendedSearch; public String weight; public Double heightMeters; public Integer age; public String type; public String parents; public String profession; public String alias; public String children; public String siblings; public… >>> More
export to csv using fastercsv and CSV::Writer (Ruby on Rails)

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
What am I trying to do: export data to csv. I have a form which allows user to select the format (from a drop down menu). So based on the selection of the format the ouput is displayed using a ajax call. Works fine for html but when I select the format as csv I don't see any pop up on the screen… >>> More
How can i make changes to this file Encoding?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have these 3 files 21/08/2014 07:15 PM 122 Tw2AWK.csv 21/08/2014 07:15 PM 125 Tw2Notepad.csv 21/08/2014 07:15 PM 119 Tw2REPL.csv C:\myfilesfile Tw2AWK.csv TwREPL.csv Tw2Notepad.csv Tw2AWK.csv; UTF-8 Unicode text, with CRLF line terminators Tw2REPL… >>> More
Unix sort keys cause performance problems

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
My data: It's a 71 MB file with 1.5 million rows. It has 6 fields All six fields combine to form a unique key - so that's what I need to sort on. Sort statement: sort -t ',' -k1,1 -k2,2 -k3,3 -k4,4 -k5,5 -k6,6 -o output.csv input.csv The problem: If I sort without keys, it takes 30 seconds… >>> More

Related posts about excel

Excel error "This workbook contains Excel 4.0 macros or Excel 5.0 modules"

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have a workbook that was protected via the Protect Workbook feature. It was sent to someone else to modify. When they sent it back, it was unprotected and when I try to reprotect it I get this error, "This workbook contains Excel 4.0 macros or Excel 5.0 modules. If you would like to… >>> More
Open excel 2007 excel files and save as 97-2003 formats in VBA

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have a weird situation where I have a set of excel files, all having the extension .xls., in a directory where I can open all of them just fine in Excel 2007. The odd thing is that I cannot open them in Excel 2003, on the same machine, without opening the file first in 2007 and going and saving… >>> More
Creating Excel or Excel compatible Spreadsheets on the server side in C#

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'd like to make server-side excel compatible spreadsheets that maybe use OpenXML or a structured data format. I've used Office Interop before to generate Excel spreadsheets, but those apps run on a PC that has office installed. For this web project I'm building, the server doesn't have office installed… >>> More
vba access values from excel workbook from another excel workbook

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Any ideas why this code will not work? Workbooks.Open Filename:="C:\a.xls" Workbooks("a.xls").Activate Worksheets("b").Select Dim OutputArray(10, 10) OutputArray(1, 1) = Workbooks("c.xls").Worksheets("worksheet_otherthan_default").Select.Range(A1).Value I'm trying to run a macro in one file (unnamed… >>> More
Excel workbook event order and usage when closing Excel

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Given the following workbook events: BeforeClose BeforeSave Please tell me: - The firing order in the case of multiple workbooks alreay opened (wb1, wb2 and wb3 are opened in this order) and the user closes Excel. You can assume all 3 needs saving. - What happen if user cancels one of the saving… >>> More