I’m a huge fan of some of the best text editors out there- Sublime Text, Atom, and Visual Studio Code. I even used them to code up Modern CSV. I felt there should be a similarly great text editor specifically for CSV files. Of course, you can use them to edit CSV files. In fact, they each have plug-ins specifically for CSVs. However, they still can’t overcome the fact that straight text editors really aren’t equipped to handle columns. On the other hand, Modern CSV handles columns just as well as rows. Here are three characteristics these text editors and Modern CSV have in common. 1. Command Palette…

Why would you ever want to transpose a CSV file? One good reason is that CSV files usually have their records arranged in rows and they sometimes have wide columns. That means you have to do a lot of horizontal scrolling if you want to view the fields in a single record. That’s annoying. One remedy is to transpose the whole CSV with the Transpose Table command. The default keyword is ctrl+alt+t. The records are now arranged in columns with the fields shown vertically. Rather than showing just a few at a time, you can view dozens at a time. Now, you can easily scan your eye over…

Most CSV editors assume that the first row of your table will be your data headers. That assumption often holds, but not always. I’ve come across many CSV files where the first few rows are metadata and the data headers are several rows down. For instance, I used to work in industrial automation programming PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers). These are computers that control the equipment in factories, buildings, oil and gas pipeline stations, etc. I often exported program data to CSVs to quickly make changes and import them back in. Here’s what a typical CSV looks like. Obviously, we want the data header to be row 6 rather…

Using Excel for CSV files is like using Word for developing code. You could do it if you like suffering and mostly program in Malbolge, but for everyone else, it’s just the wrong tool for the job. Let’s first cover the main functionality Excel has that Modern CSV does not: Figure plotting Formulas Macros Pivot Tables Individual cell formatting (font, color, etc.) Embedding pictures, videos, etc. As a general spreadsheet tool, Excel is great when you need these things, but it’s a poor tool for dealing with CSV files. Here are the main complaints people have about it: Automatically formats data in undesirable ways Limits you to 1,048,576…

I’m not a virologist or medical researcher, so there’s not much I can do to help in that respect. I have noticed some Modern CSV users are data scientists and there is a lot of data science going on with tracking the spread of COVID-19, so I’m giving away free personal licenses to anyone who wants to use Modern CSV for that purpose. Just go to the contact page and request one while briefly describing what you plan to do with it. By the way, the raw data behind the Johns Hopkins coronavirus interactive map can be found here. Stay safe out there.