How to edit CSV file without changing or formatting values (ideally in Neo/Open-Office)?

Posted by Scott Saunders on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Scott Saunders
Published on 2010-03-19T14:18:30Z Indexed on 2010/03/19 14:21 UTC
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csv

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editor

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open-office

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neooffice

I often need to edit CSV files that will later be imported into databases. I need to reorder columns, change values, delete lines, etc. I use NeoOffice for this now - it's basically Open Office with some Mac UI stuff tweaked.

Often, though NeoOffice tries to be "helpful" and reformats fields it thinks are dates, rounds numbers to some number of decimals, etc. This breaks the file import and/or changes important data values. How can I prevent this from happening? I need to edit the fields exactly as they would appear in a text editor, with absolutely no changes to the data in the fields.

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