Convert CSV to PDF
Turn a CSV or TSV into a clean printable table, in your browser.
Comma, semicolon, tab or pipe separated. The separator is detected for you.
What to know about CSV to PDF
A CSV is a text file, and turning one into a document means deciding three things it does not tell you: which character separates the fields, which encoding the bytes are in, and whether the first row is a heading or data. This works all three out, shows you what it found before it converts anything, and lets you overrule any of them.
A CSV is not a spreadsheet. It is a text file with a convention layered on top, and the convention is looser than people expect — which is why so many converters produce a page of shifted columns or replacement characters and leave you guessing which.
There are three things the file does not tell you, and all three have to be decided before there is a table at all.
The first is which character separates the fields. A comma is the name of the format, but semicolons are standard wherever the comma is a decimal separator — most of Europe — and a great many files named .csv are tab separated because that is what the exporting system produced. Guessing by counting commas fails immediately: a file full of quoted prose has more commas inside the text than a semicolon-separated layout has between its fields. So each candidate is parsed properly and scored on whether it produces rows that agree with each other about how many columns there are. A real separator gives consistent rows; a wrong one does not.
The second is the encoding. A file exported from an older system is usually windows-1252, and reading it as UTF-8 is what turns é into é across every page. This decides by trying: a strict UTF-8 read either succeeds or fails on invalid bytes, and when it fails, windows-1252 is what those bytes almost always are. A byte-order mark is stripped before anything else looks at the text — left in place it glues an invisible character to your first column heading.
The third is whether the first row is a heading. It is treated as one by default because it nearly always is, and a table drawn without a header row puts a label in the body where it reads as a value. When your file has no heading, turning that off pushes the real first row back into the body where it belongs.
Quoting is handled properly rather than by splitting on the separator. A field written as "Smith, John" is one field; a quoted field may contain line breaks; a doubled quote inside quotes is one literal quote. Splitting naively is the classic way a reader shifts half the columns of a row without announcing it.
One thing this deliberately does not do is interpret your values. Opening a CSV in Excel and printing it runs everything through Excel's type guessing on the way in, which drops the leading zero from a postcode, turns a long reference number into scientific notation and silently loses its last digits, and reads 3-4 as a date. Every field here is drawn as the characters that are in the file, because a converter's job is to show you the data, not to have an opinion about it.
And the file never leaves your device. A CSV is usually the most sensitive export a system produces — customer rows, transactions, payroll — and this one is read in your own browser tab, with no upload and nothing kept.
How to convert a CSV to PDF
- 1
Choose the file
Drop in a .csv or .tsv. It is read on your device — a file of customer rows or transactions is never uploaded.
- 2
Check what was detected
The separator, the text encoding and the first few rows are shown before anything is converted, so a wrong guess is visible rather than buried in the result.
- 3
Say whether row one is a heading
It is treated as one by default, because it usually is. Turn it off and the first row is drawn as ordinary data instead.
- 4
Convert and download
Choose page size and orientation, then download. Landscape suits wide tables far better than portrait.
What CSV to PDF accepts and produces
- Input
- One .csv or .tsv file. Comma, semicolon, tab and pipe separated files are all read, and the separator is detected for you.
- Output
- A PDF holding the data as a table, with the first row drawn as a header unless you say otherwise.
- Limits
- Data, not formatting — a CSV carries no colours, column widths or formulas, so there are none to reproduce. Up to 20,000 rows and 40 columns, beyond which a page cannot hold a legible table.
- Offline
- Yes, entirely, after your first visit.
Why CSV to PDF here
- The file never leaves your device — no upload, no account, no retention policy to read
- Semicolon and tab separated files are handled, not just commas
- Files that are not UTF-8 are decoded properly instead of filling the page with question marks
- Values are never reinterpreted — long numbers and leading zeros survive exactly as written
- No watermark and no row limit on a free tier, because there is no paid tier
- Works with the network switched off once the page has loaded
Where your file goes
Nowhere. This tool runs inside your browser, and the page is served with a policy that forbids it from sending your document anywhere. You can confirm that yourself: open your browser’s developer tools, watch the Network tab, and process a file.
Questions
My CSV uses semicolons, not commas. Will it work?
Yes. The separator is detected rather than assumed, and semicolons, tabs and pipes are all recognised alongside commas. Semicolons are the norm anywhere the comma is a decimal separator, which is most of Europe, so a file exported from a Dutch or German system is usually semicolon-separated even though it is named .csv. If the detection ever gets it wrong you can set the separator yourself and the preview updates immediately.
Why does my file show strange characters like é or a black diamond?
Because it was saved in an older single-byte encoding — usually windows-1252 — and something read it as UTF-8. That mismatch is what turns é into é. This checks: bytes that are not valid UTF-8 are decoded as windows-1252 instead, which is what they almost always are. The encoding it settled on is reported with the result, so you can see which happened.
Will it mangle long numbers and leading zeros the way Excel does?
No, and this is the main reason to avoid the Excel route. Opening a CSV in Excel and printing it applies Excel's type guessing on the way in: a leading zero on a postcode or account number is dropped, a sixteen-digit card or reference number becomes scientific notation and loses its last digits, and a value like 3-4 turns into a date. Nothing here interprets a value. Every field is drawn as the characters that are in the file.
What happens to a comma inside a quoted field?
It stays part of the value, which is exactly what the quotes are for. A field written as "Smith, John" is one field, not two, and a quoted field may contain line breaks and quote characters as well — a doubled quote inside quotes means one literal quote. Splitting naively on every comma is the classic way a CSV reader shifts half the columns of a row, and this parses properly rather than splitting.
Can I convert a TSV, or a file with no extension?
Yes. Tab-separated files are read the same way, and the separator is worked out from the content rather than the file name — which matters because a great many files named .csv are actually tab or semicolon separated. If the extension and the contents disagree, the contents win.
My export has forty columns and none of them fit.
A machine-generated CSV usually carries every field the system had, most of which nobody wants to read. Landscape and a smaller text size buy some room, and columns that are empty in every row are dropped for you, but past about forty columns no page will hold a legible table. The fix is upstream: delete the columns you do not need before converting, or export fewer of them. Unlike a workbook there are no sheets to choose between here, so trimming the file is the only lever.