CSV and TSV explained
CSV is plain text where each line is a row and commas separate the fields. There is no formatting, no formulas, and no second sheet — which is precisely why every system on earth can read it.
TSV is CSV with tab characters as separators. Because tabs almost never appear inside data fields, it sidesteps most of CSV's quoting problems.
- Where CSV files come from
- Database exports, analytics tools and data interchange between systems.
- Where TSV is used
- Bioinformatics, data pipelines and anywhere fields contain commas.