I've downloaded a csv file from a Latin American bank. There are no commas in it - only semicolons. Numbers over a thousand have no commas or decimals in them.

This is information from one cell when I open it in Excel:


60;2014/05/06;6121810;550.46;;RETIRO ATM CTA CTE DIFERENTE MONEDA ;

I've tried changing the semicolons to commas, saving and reopening but then I just get the same thing with commas.

How do I get Excel to turn the semicolons into tabs and display this properly?

Bonus question: How come when I search the Excel forum for "csv" I don't find anything? I can't believe no one has asked question about csv files before.

In the Text Import Wizard, choose delimited. Press [Next]. Check semicolon. Uncheck tab. Press [Finish].

Bonus: When you come to a fork in the road and the road you want is closed, try the other. I don't know why a search wouldn't turn up threads or posts with "csv" in it. I did that search myself and it didn't even find this thread. Perhaps the string isn't long enough. Perhaps it only searches proper words, not acronyms or abbreviations. Who knows.

In any case, don't despair! You can search for "comma separated" which will get you some hits.

Thank you. How do I get to the Text Import Wizard?

Open Excel. Select File:Open. From the drop down box in the lower right corner, set the file type to Text Files. Choose your file. Click [Open].