csv export files contain weird characters ""
jschaffe
Member ✭✭✭
So I'm trying to migrate from Q2007 to Q2018, and am currently exploring how to export reports from Q2018 for external analysis. So far I can work around most of the limitations I've encountered (such as by clicking in the Accounts Summary display, typing cmd-A, cmd-C and pasting into Excel), but one nagging detail may present some issues. On reports where I am permitted to export csv files (which I want to do for archiving purposes), the string "" (without the quotes) appears at the start of many of the rows when I open the csv file in Excel . Here are two examples:
Investing Report Created: 2018-07-11 15:43:07 -0400
 Scheduled Split Date Type Security/Payee Description Amount Account
Looking at the files in TextEdit, the characters do not seem to appear.
Is this a bug or is there something I can do about it?
Investing Report Created: 2018-07-11 15:43:07 -0400
 Scheduled Split Date Type Security/Payee Description Amount Account
Looking at the files in TextEdit, the characters do not seem to appear.
Is this a bug or is there something I can do about it?
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Comments
If so, I don't see any strange characters in Excel when I do that. Note: my system is all localized for the US with default locations. I don't know if your system is different and if that matters.
- Start Excel 2011
- Go to File->Import
- Choose CSV (it's chosen for me by default),
- Click "Import"
- In the open file dialog, navigate to and open my csv file
- In the next step change the "File origin" dropdown to any of "Unicode 9.0", "Unicode 9.0 UTF-7", or "Unicode 9.0(Little-Endian" , and the strange characters go away.
- Note: "Unicode 9.0 UTF-8" changes the three special characters to two underscores
As I said, this is way too inconvenient for day to day work with multiple export/imports, but it is a clue of sorts. I wonder if there's a way that Excel can apply this setting whenever I double-click a csv file, or if that would mess things up if I opened csv's from other sources.John, I get these characters in two places:
- When I click the share icon at the bottom of the Investing portfolio grouped by account and export to CSV.
- When I change the Investing display to Transactions, go to File->Export->Register transactions to CSV and choose "All visible transactions"
I'd also like to export the Reports->Accounts summary page, but that's not offered either within the display or in the file->Export submenu. I did find that I can select the entire report and do a copy paste, which while not totally convenient, at least lets me get the data into Excel.I suggest you download Apple's Numbers:
https://www.apple.com/numbers/
and see if the problem exists with that.