PSV (Pipe-Separated) Converter

Convert between pipe-separated values and CSV, TSV, or JSON formats.

Tested tool guide Tested browser tools Checked August 16, 2026

What PSV (Pipe-Separated) Converter does, with a checked example

Pipe-separated values are a workaround, not a standard: a delimiter that rarely appears inside real text, so commas, quotes, and newlines can ride along inside fields with no escaping at all. This tool converts PSV to CSV, TSV, or JSON and back, splitting each line on the pipe and rebuilding rows in the target format. The surprise most users hit: whitespace around the pipe is part of the value, so 'name | city' yields 'name ' and ' city' with spaces intact, and a single pipe inside a field splits it into two columns no matter how you escape it.

Worked example

A concrete input and expected output from the current implementation.

Input

name|notes
Ada|Pioneer, first programmer

Expected output

name,notes
Ada,"Pioneer, first programmer"

Each pipe becomes a comma and each line stays a row. Because the notes field contains a comma, the converter wraps it in double quotes, the quoting rule of RFC 4180, so the comma is not read as a column separator.

How the result is produced

Line and pipe splitting

The converter reads the input as lines and splits each line on the pipe character, so every pipe is a boundary and there is no escape syntax to remove. Spaces and tabs around pipes are ordinary characters and stay in the values. A line with fewer pipes than the header row becomes a short row, and a Windows carriage return at line end is dropped.

Quoting and structure per target

CSV output wraps a field in double quotes when it contains a comma, quote, or newline, doubling embedded quotes, per RFC 4180. TSV output joins fields with tabs and needs no quoting for ordinary values. JSON output uses the first row as object keys when it looks like a header, and arrays otherwise; either way, no quoting is added because JSON delimits its own strings.

Good uses

A database client or ETL job exported its result with pipe separators; convert it to CSV so it opens in Excel or Numbers with no import wizard and no '|' characters scattered across one column.
A script or pipeline expects TSV or JSON; instead of writing a parser that handles unquoted pipes, quotes, and blank lines, paste the PSV text and take the converted output.
Restoring order to a CSV with stray commas and broken quoting: convert it to PSV, where commas need no escaping, then convert back to CSV and let the quoting rules be applied uniformly.

Limits and checks

A pipe inside a value cannot be represented: PSV defines no escape mechanism, so 'Foo | Bar' splits into two columns. Scan the source for pipes before converting, or the row and column counts will silently change.
Whitespace is significant and preserved: 'Ada |Portland' becomes fields 'Ada ' and 'Portland'. The spaces are invisible in most editors and are not trimmed by spreadsheet tools, so padded exports keep their padding through every conversion.
PSV is line-oriented, so a field containing a newline cannot survive the round trip: converting CSV to PSV turns such a cell into two rows, and converting back does not rejoin them. Header detection is inferred too, so check that the first row is a header and not data.

Common questions

Is my data uploaded anywhere?

No. Parsing and conversion happen entirely in the page, so nothing you paste is sent over the network, and the tool works offline on files you would not want on a server. Keep the usual care you would take with any screen showing sensitive data: close the tab or clear the input when the conversion is done.

Can it convert back from CSV to PSV?

Yes, every direction works. Quoting is stripped rather than carried over: a CSV field such as "Smith, John" comes out of PSV as the bare value Smith, John between pipes, and converting back to CSV re-applies the quotes. Content survives the round trip; the quoting style does not.

References and verification

The example and behavioral notes were checked against the browser implementation. Standards and primary references below define the relevant format, formula, or platform behavior.