How to Convert CSV to Excel Without Losing Zeros or Hindi Text

To convert a CSV file to Excel, upload it to the free CSV to Excel converter and download the .xlsx, or open Excel and use Data › From Text/CSV, then save the result as an Excel Workbook. Both put every value in its own column. The difference shows up with tricky data: phone numbers that start with 0, 12-digit Aadhaar numbers, DD/MM dates and Hindi text.

The quick converter is fine for ordinary data such as names, cities and amounts. If your file has ID numbers, codes with leading zeros or dates written day-first, use Excel's import and set those columns to Text. This guide shows all three methods (the converter, Excel and Google Sheets) and what each one does to your values. We tested them on the same file, so you can see the results side by side.

Which method should you use?

Method 1: the free online converter

1. Open the CSV to Excel converter and drop your .csv file on the box, or tap Choose a file.
2. Click Convert to Excel. When it says your Excel file is ready, click Download result.
3. Open the .xlsx. It has your file's name and one sheet called Sheet1.

The converter uses the SheetJS spreadsheet library inside your browser, so the file is never uploaded to a server. It detects commas, semicolons and tabs as separators on its own, and it honours a first line such as sep=;. Values wrapped in double quotes keep their commas and line breaks, so "Pune, MH" stays in one cell.

Like Excel, it reads each value and guesses its type. That helps with amounts: "1,50,000" becomes the number 150000, so SUM works straight away. It hurts IDs and dates. Here is what happened to one test row:

Three quirks of the converter are worth knowing. It reads slash dates month-first, so a day of 12 or less gets swapped and a day above 12 stays as text. Dates written as 2026-08-15 arrive as a plain number (46249.23 in India) until you format the column as a date. And it needs a UTF-8 file that starts with a byte-order mark (BOM) to read Hindi or the ₹ sign; without one you get characters such as à¤.

The .xlsx it writes is also larger than one saved by Excel because it isn't compressed. A 10,000-row CSV of 502 KB became a 2.4 MB workbook; opening it in Excel and saving again brought it down to 413 KB.

Method 2: Excel's own import (Data › From Text/CSV)

This is the method to use when the data matters. The steps below are for Excel for Microsoft 365, Excel 2024 and Excel 2021 on Windows, as of October 2026:

1. Open a blank workbook. On the Data tab, in the Get & Transform Data group, click From Text/CSV, pick the file and click Import.
2. In the preview, set File Origin to 65001: Unicode (UTF-8) if the file has Hindi, Tamil or ₹. Check that Delimiter shows Comma (or Semicolon).
3. Set Data Type Detection to Do not detect data types. Every column then loads as Text, exactly as written in the file.
4. Click Load to put the data on a new sheet. To turn only some columns into numbers or dates, click Transform Data instead, click the type icon at the left of a column heading and choose Whole Number, Decimal Number or Date.
5. Save with File › Save As › Excel Workbook (*.xlsx).

For a DD/MM date column in Power Query, right-click the heading and choose Change Type › Using Locale, then pick Date and English (India). Power Query then reads 03/04/2026 as 3 April.

If you prefer the older step-by-step wizard, switch it on under File › Options › Data › Show legacy data import wizards › From Text (Legacy). It then appears under Data › Get Data › Legacy Wizards. In step 3, select a column and choose Text for codes or Date with DMY for day-first dates.

Method 3: Google Sheets

1. In a new spreadsheet, click File › Import, open the Upload tab and choose your CSV.
2. Pick an import location (for example, Replace spreadsheet or Insert new sheet(s)) and leave the separator on Detect automatically.
3. To keep leading zeros, untick Convert text to numbers, dates, and formulas. This applies to every column, so amounts also stay as text.
4. Click Import, then File › Download › Microsoft Excel (.xlsx).

How to keep leading zeros, long numbers, dates and Hindi text

Leading zeros: PIN codes, phone numbers, employee codes

A number has no leading zeros, so any column read as a number loses them. Indian PIN codes never start with 0, so they survive, but STD codes (011, 0124), phone numbers written with a 0, roll numbers and employee codes such as 007 do not. Import those columns as Text. In Excel for Microsoft 365 and Excel 2024 you can also untick Remove leading zeros and convert to number under File › Options › Data › Automatic Data Conversion; after that, even double-clicking a CSV keeps them.

Long numbers: Aadhaar, card and account numbers

Excel stores numbers to 15 significant digits. Any digit after the 15th becomes 0, which is why the 16-digit card number above ended in 0. A 12-digit Aadhaar number keeps all its digits, but the General format shows any number of 12 or more digits in scientific notation, such as 1.23457E+11. Select the column, press Ctrl+1 and choose Number with 0 decimal places to see it in full. Anything longer than 15 digits must come in as Text, because the lost digits can't be recovered later.

Dates

Excel reads dates in the order your Windows region uses. On a PC set to English (India) that is day-month-year, so 03/04/2026 means 3 April; on a US-set PC the same text means 4 March. If the file will travel, write dates as 2026-04-03 (year-month-day), which no program reads the wrong way round.

Hindi, other Indian scripts and the ₹ sign

These need the file to be read as UTF-8. Excel and our converter recognise UTF-8 reliably only when the file begins with a BOM. To add one, open the CSV in Notepad, choose File › Save as, set Encoding to UTF-8 with BOM and save. If you export from Excel, choose CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited), which adds the BOM for you.

If you have no Excel and every column must stay exactly as typed, there is a two-step route on a computer. Paste the CSV into the CSV to JSON converter, which keeps every value as text. Save the result as a .json file, then upload that to the JSON to Excel converter. Zeros and Hindi survive, but amounts arrive as text too.

Common mistakes

• Saving over the original CSV after opening it in Excel. Excel writes back what it shows, so the stripped zeros and rounded digits become permanent. Keep the original and save your work as .xlsx.
• Adding a custom format such as 00000 afterwards. It pads the display to a fixed length but can't tell which values really had zeros, so it is wrong for codes of different lengths.
• Trusting a CSV from an unknown source. A cell that starts with = becomes a live formula in both Excel and our converter. Check such files in a text editor first.

When the file opens with everything in one column or with strange characters, the guide CSV opens wrong in Excel walks through each fix. For the reverse trip, see how to convert Excel to CSV, and for when to keep which format, read Excel vs CSV.

Frequently asked questions

Can I convert CSV to Excel without Excel installed?

Yes. The CSV to Excel converter runs in any modern browser on a phone or computer, and Google Sheets can import a CSV and download it as .xlsx. You only need a spreadsheet app to open the finished file.

Why does my CSV open in only one column?

Excel splits a CSV using the list separator in your Windows region settings. If the file uses semicolons and your PC expects commas (or the other way round), everything lands in column A. Import it with Data › From Text/CSV and choose the right delimiter, or run it through the converter, which detects semicolons on its own.

How do I put several CSV files into one workbook?

The converter turns one CSV into one workbook with one sheet. In Excel, import each file with Data › From Text/CSV and use Load To to send each to a new worksheet. For many files with the same columns, Power Query's Folder connector can combine them into one table.

Is my file uploaded when I use the online converter?

No. The page loads the conversion code once, and the file is read and converted inside your browser tab. Nothing is sent to a server, which matters for salary sheets, customer lists and other private data.

Will the converted file keep my formulas?

A CSV holds no formulas, only values, so there is nothing to keep. If a CSV cell contains text such as =A2*2, both Excel and the converter turn it into a working formula in the .xlsx.

Sources: Microsoft Support: Import or export text (.txt or .csv) files; Text Import Wizard; Keep leading zeros and large numbers; Set automatic data conversions; Excel specifications and limits. Microsoft Learn: Power Query Text/CSV connector; Data types in Power Query. Google Docs Editors Help: Import data sets in Google Sheets. Tests run in Excel 2021 (Windows, English (India) settings) and with the converter's own code, October 2026.