Tablora · Library
Separate field boundaries from decimal punctuation
In a semicolon-separated table such as Paper;1.234,50, the comma is a decimal mark. Fix the field boundaries first, then convert the amounts.
Two jobs for punctuation
Spreadsheets set to German, French, Spanish, Turkish and many other languages save CSV files with semicolons between fields, because the comma is already taken as the decimal mark. A line such as Paper;1.234,50 has one field boundary, the semicolon, and two characters inside the amount that belong to the number.
Two separate decisions are needed: which character separates fields, and how the digits in the amount column are written. Mixing them up is how a single amount ends up split across two cells.
Inspecting Paper;1.234,50
The page example is a header item;amount and the record Paper;1.234,50, with semicolon as the Delimiter. The inspector reports 2 rows and 2 columns, and row 2, column 2 reads 1.234,50. The amount is still text at this stage; the inspector does not convert numbers.
If you choose the comma as the Delimiter instead, the header becomes one cell, item;amount, and the record splits into Paper;1.234 and 50. Columns then shows 2, and Rows with a different width shows 1, because the header has only one field. Detect delimiter picks the semicolon for this example because it gives every row the same width.
From structure to numbers
- In the inspector, settle the Delimiter first and confirm that Rows with a different width is 0.
- Open the numeric normalizer, paste the same text and set Delimiter to the semicolon.
- Tick First row contains column names and choose amount in Number column.
- Set Decimal separator to , and Grouping separator to . and press Calculate.
- The amount 1.234,50 becomes 1234.50; check Values left for review for anything the settings did not cover.
- A high Values left for review count can mean that some amounts use a point as the decimal mark; a file assembled from two sources can mix conventions.
Points of confusion
- A semicolon file is still called CSV by most software. Look at the actual characters rather than the file extension.
- Detection is a starting point. When two delimiters give equally consistent results, choose explicitly.
- Do not swap commas and points across the whole text to make it look like an English file; that also changes descriptions and codes.
- When you download the converted table, the CSV uses commas between fields and points in the converted amounts, so it is in a different convention from the file you started with.
- The Tablora app reads tables from PDFs and photos rather than from text, so this choice does not come up there; its CSV export uses commas between fields.
Original synthetic example
- Input
- item;amount Paper;1.234,50
- Delimiter
- ;
- Expected records
- 2
- Columns in the first record
- 2
- Cell to inspect
- Row 2, column 2: 1.234,50