CSV files and the CSV Lint plug-in for Notepad++, view, edit, sort and convert text data more easily

The CSV Lint plug-in for Notepad++ is useful when working with CSV files (comma separated values) and fixed width text files. It adds syntax highlighting to a csv file, so display each column in a different color, automatically detect the column meta data and data types, it can validate data and check for errors, reformat datetime and decimal values, count unique values and it can generate a data analyze report and SQL insert script.

CSV Lint is somewhat similar to Rainbow CSV or CudaText CSV, except it also recognizes column datatypes, so you can convert datetime and decimal values, sort a dataset, generate SQL, Python or Rstudio scripts, generate datadictionary with column metadata, and other processing and data validation features.

0:00 How to install
1:30 Syntax highlight colors
3:25 Meta data
4:22 Validate data
5:21 Reformat data
6:25 Other features

CSV Lint plug-in on GitHub

If you want to support this project, you can buy me a coffee.

This is not strictly CSV Lint related, but if you have a Microsoft account, you can help by upvoting these two csv questions on the Microsoft feedback page, thanks

[BradGroux]

This was a lifesaver, thanks for such a great tutorial!

[KunjaBihariKrishna]

I didn't realize there was a dark mode. I kinda got used to the default colors. They are super easy to see. I'm actually having a hard time adjusting to dark mode now. I'm not sure if I really like it better

[cjw]

Can you tell if there's a limit to the coloring when having a file of 494.909.156 bytes with 335.465 lines and 188 columns being semicolon separated?
Asking as it seems to not do the trick for this file while it perfectly does for others.

[thorbjrnhellehaven]

Seems like a nice plugin, but I was hoping it had some display features to align the columns.

I want to edit CSV-files, in a sheet, but without text formatting.
If I use Excel, and copy text from a web-page, it's more hassle to paste without formatting.

[creativenametxt]

I can't seem to make the highlighting work with any separator other than ;
using current latest version of notepad++, want to use,
the column auto detection tool works, but the highlight only picks up on ; symbol

[Limofeus]

Hello, this is really an amazing pluggin! I am trying to make a localization files for my progect in csv format and I use 4 symbols as a separator, comma with space in quotes (", ") so for now I use Delimited(") and have some spare comma columns, so it would be cool if you could use not char, but string as a separator, something like Delimited(", "). Also, im not sure if this is possible with notepad++ but some sort of arrangement of values in more spreadsheet like form would be also quite handy, but colors are already good enough. So, huge thanks for the plugin and keep up the great work!

[cjw]

Thanks for giving us this very useful tooling! Could it be made possible to have the column header getting the same colors as the columns?

[hellonterna]

Hey, friend. Very good work! Love this plugin. Unfortunately it's not working on version 8.4. Are you aware of this version?

[CreepsoRX]

bruh did anyone noticed the GTA6 iso???? from 2021 LOL

[Xexorian]

how do I get the CSV values to be vertically aligned like columns are in excel?