Transpose CSV Files

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.

Most delicious CSV file ever.

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 them to find what you’re looking for. When you’re done, you can undo it by hitting ctrl+z and reverting it back.

Transposing part of the CSV file

In Excel, if you want to transpose a segment of a table, you have to copy it and paste it with the Transpose paste option.

With Modern CSV, you can transpose it easily with the Transpose Selected Cells command.

I’m not sure why you’d want to do what I did here, but the option’s there.

The transpose features are only available in the Premium version of Modern CSV. With the free version, you can still do a bunch of useful things, like:

• Load ultra-large files (no file size limit on the free version)
• Insert/Remove/Duplicate rows and columns
• Sort
• Open files with a variety of delimiters and character encodings
• Operate on multiple rows/columns cells at once
• Customize keyboard shortcuts

If you upgrade to Premium, you get the CSV transpose features plus:

• Filter and hide rows and columns
• Join and split cells, rows, and columns
• Case conversion
• A whole bunch more

By the way, I have only eaten in one Chicago pizza restaurant before and it was fantastic. I’m not sure which one, but it very well could have been Gino’s East, so I’m just going to pretend it was. If you ever find yourself in Chicago, take my wholehearted recommendation and try out Gino’s East even though I might not have ever been there. Hey, it look delicious anyway, so I’m probably not leading you astray.