Python : .csv doesn't open well in MS excel

Question

I write a csv using python's unicodecsv module like this :

with open(self.FILENAME, 'wb') as csvfile:$                            
    writer = unicodecsv.writer(csvfile, delimiter='|',quotechar='"')                                             
         write_func(writer)                                         

However opening this file directly in excel causes problems. The data doesn't seem to be written correctly. I get missing columns in excel and records overflowing to the other rows. It works fine in Libreoffice

Is there anything that should be taken care of while writing to csv if I have to use that file in excel ?

Answer 1

Use delimiter used by default in Excel.

Answer 2

I'd advised to use openpyxl (or similar) Python library to create xlsx files instead. Then it will work with both LibreOffice and MS Excel. Opening of CSVs on Excel is made hard, and subtle details change from version to version.