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XLSX vs CSV

Comparing Microsoft Excel Open XML Spreadsheet and Comma-Separated Values - which format should you use?

	XLSX	CSV
Full Name	Microsoft Excel Open XML Spreadsheet	Comma-Separated Values
Extension	.xlsx	.csv
MIME Type	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet	text/csv
Category	document	data

XLSX Pros

+Industry standard for spreadsheets
+Supports formulas, charts, macros
+Smaller than XLS (ZIP compressed)
+Compatible with Google Sheets, LibreOffice

XLSX Cons

-Binary content can be hard to diff/merge
-Macro-enabled versions (.xlsm) can be security risks
-Complex for simple data (use CSV instead)
-Proprietary format specification

CSV Pros

+Universally compatible
+Human-readable plain text
+Tiny file sizes
+Easy to generate and parse programmatically

CSV Cons

-No data type information (everything is text)
-No standard for encoding or escaping
-No support for hierarchical data
-No formatting, formulas, or multiple sheets

Use XLSX when...

-Financial reports and budgets
-Data analysis and modeling
-Business reporting
-Inventory tracking

Use CSV when...

-Data export/import between applications
-Database dumps
-Spreadsheet data exchange
-Data analysis and reporting

Learn more about XLSX Learn more about CSV