Like Make, the CSV file format will outlive us all. That said, editing a CSV file is a precarious task, as it can be easy to violate its separator and escape rules. Thankfully, the Emacs ecosystem has got you covered, with the 3rd party ELPA package csv-mode. This mode provides all kinds of conveniences including:

• spreadsheet-like visualizing and editing of fields (field alignment)
• separator auto-detection (comma, tab, space, etc.)
• support for quoted fields
• sorting by fields
• killing and yanking fields

To aid in the discovery and usage of these features, I’m happy to announce Casual CSV, now available in the Casual v2.11.1 update on MELPA.

One notable feature Casual CSV adds is the ability to select a region of rows to copy to the kill-ring as an Org table. This is also usable in Markdown flavors that support tables.

Closing Thoughts and Caveats

YMMV on how well csv-mode works for you as its performance is tied to the size of CSV file you are working with. If you are trying to edit a CSV file that is hundreds of megabytes in size or greater, you might want to think twice before doing this in Emacs with csv-mode.

As a general rule, I try to avoid editing CSV files in the first place, as I prefer to think of them as files for data exchange. My ideal use-case for csv-mode is really for viewing. That said, if you really need to edit a CSV file, it is best to copy it first. Casual CSV reflects this sensibility by offering a command to duplicate a file.

To get the best results out of csv-mode, I highly recommend turning on field alignment and separator auto-detection. In addition, turning off line-wrapping will aid in both visualization and navigation. The following Elisp configuration shows how to do this.

;; disable line wrap
(add-hook 'csv-mode-hook
          (lambda ()
            (visual-line-mode -1)
            (toggle-truncate-lines 1)))

;; auto detect separator
(add-hook 'csv-mode-hook #'csv-guess-set-separator)
;; turn on field alignment
(add-hook 'csv-mode-hook #'csv-align-mode)

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