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How to convert CSV to Excel without breaking special characters

You open a CSV in Excel and see “José” or everything lands in a single column. It is not your file: it is an encoding and delimiter issue. Here is the fix.

Why it happens

  • Encoding: many systems export UTF-8, but Excel may read a double-clicked CSV with a legacy encoding, breaking accented characters.
  • Delimiter: some systems use commas, others semicolons or tabs. If Excel expects another one, everything ends up in column A.
  • Leading zeros: Excel turns “01234” into 1234, ruining ZIP codes, IDs and account numbers.

The quick fix

  1. Open the CSV to Excel converter.
  2. Drop your .csv file.
  3. Check the preview: encoding and delimiter are detected automatically.
  4. Download the .xlsx: bold headers, filters, frozen first row and fitted columns.

Leading zeros: values starting with 0 (like 01234) are kept as text so no data is lost.

Doing it inside Excel

Instead of double-clicking, use Data → Get Data → From Text/CSV, choose “65001: Unicode (UTF-8)” as file origin and the right delimiter. To keep leading zeros, set those columns to Text.

The other way: Excel to CSV

To create a CSV for another system, use the Excel to CSV converter; it saves UTF-8 with BOM so characters display correctly.

Convert CSV to ExcelConvert .csv to .xlsx with filters and formatting.
Open Convert CSV to Excel →

Frequently asked questions

What is UTF-8?

The most common text encoding on the web; it supports accents and characters from any language.

My CSV uses semicolons. What should I do?

Nothing: the converter detects it automatically.

Is there a row limit?

It depends on your computer memory; tens of thousands of rows work fine.

More guides

How to open an Excel file without ExcelHow to open a Word (.docx) file without OfficeHow to open a PowerPoint without PowerPointHow to convert Word to PDF for free without uploading

Updated: October 2026.