Opening a Tab-Delimited "CSV" in Apple iWork Numbers

I like Numbers, from Apple's competent and beautiful iWork suite, but there are still things where it is different from Microsoft Excel, and hence it feels somewhat unfamiliar at times. For example, although Excel has never been good at handling text files saved in UTF-8 format (a big deal for those of us who work in Asia), it does have a nice Wizard for importing CSV or TSV text files.

Some applications export text files with tab-separated values, and put a CSV extension on them. Actually, CSV stands for "Comma Separated Values" where these are really "TSV" or "Tab Separated Values." When you try to import such a CSV file, Numbers will mash all the fields into one cell in the left-most column. That makes sense, because it's looking for commas judging by the CSV extension. Finding none, it just lets the data pile on.

How to Import a Tab-Separated "CSV" in Numbers

If you have a tab-separated CSV, here's how to open it:

1. Save the file somewhere you can find it.
2. Rename the file in Finder, so that it has a .TXT extension.
3. Ctrl-click the file and choose "Open With" and "Numbers".

Now the data will open correctly, with each field getting its due, and you'll get the added benefit of Numbers not munging any Japanese or Chinese characters.

Hope this tip helps someone. Enjoy!

Handle Leading Zeros in iWork Numbers

Apple's iWork '09 Numbers spreadsheet is a versatile app with a lot of power available if you open your mind and don't expect it to be Excel. It does not quite do everything Excel does, but it handles UTF-8 well (where Excel does not and has never), and I take advantage of that often. I also love the formatting options and the multiple-sheets-per-document paradigm, but that is a different post.

One challenge in both Excel and Numbers is how to handle fields with numbers with leading zeros. For instance, a part number 001234 will come out as 1234 when you import it from a CSV in either app, and lose meaning if the actual part must include the leading zeros. You can set a cell or column format in Excel as 000000, and this works the same way in Numbers, except the method's a little unfamiliar.

How to Format a Part Number Field to Preserve Leading Zeros

Here's how to not maim your part numbers.

1. Select your column to format, and open the Cells inspector.
2. Select Custom Format from Cell Format then click Show Format.
3. Give the format a name, and choose the base type.
4. Delete whatever format is in there by default and drag up an Integers type lozenge.
5. Open the disclosure triangle, and choose "Show Zeros for Unused Digits" and you will see the #,### change to 0,000. Click Show Separator to deselect it and remove the comma. Add two digits.
6. Click OK to save and apply the format to the selected column.

If you set the format as 000000 for a field that includes six digit numerics with leading zeros, and a mix of text with numeric part numbers, such as:

001234

P098765

005544

R-09-PCX

... the latter will not be affected by the format, which is just the right behavior we need.

I hope this tip helps someone, because not being able to set this really drove me a bit batty. Enjoy!