CSV / Delimited Text
.csv.tsv.txtNearly every instrument, spreadsheet, and analysis tool in existence
What it is
Plain delimited text — comma, tab, semicolon, or pipe-separated. The single most common data format in science, and AltaiPlot's most heavily exercised importer (including dedicated fuzz-testing of the streaming parser against malformed real-world files).
Who produces it
Everything — spreadsheets, instrument software, scripts, other plotting tools.
What we read / what we don't read
What we read
- Comma, tab, semicolon, or pipe-delimited values, auto-detected from the first lines of the file
- Quoted fields, including escaped quotes and embedded delimiters
- Both comma-decimal and period-decimal number formats (auto-detected, so "1.234,56" and "1,234.56" aren't confused for each other)
- Any line-ending style (Windows/Unix/old Mac)
- Gzip-compressed .csv.gz/.tsv.gz files transparently
- Files up to 10M+ rows via streaming import, with no data loss even on malformed rows
What we don't read
- Nothing structural is skipped — CSV has no hidden content the way a binary format does; the only real limitation is ambiguous delimiter/decimal detection on very short or unusual files, which AltaiPlot surfaces for you to confirm rather than guessing silently
How to import it into AltaiPlot
- Open AltaiPlot and drag your .csv/.tsv/.txt file onto the window, or use File → Import.
- AltaiPlot auto-detects the delimiter and decimal format from the file's content — confirm or override in the preview.
- Click Import — even multi-million-row files stream in without freezing the app.
Auditability note: this page's capability claims are sourced fromsrc/renderer/src/engine/v7/import/importers/CsvImporter.ts:1 — see the full format list for every extension AltaiPlot recognizes.