Wednesday, June 13, 2007

.CSV File Editor Software

If you work with delimited text files, like CSV files (Comma Separated Values) or tab-delimited values, or any other row and column type data files where the column values are separated by delimiters of some sort, there is nice product on the market to make your life easier. It is a .csv file editor that is quite handy and powerful.

A common way to manipulate delimited data files is to use Excel (which can open CSV files), but that implies owning Microsoft Office (or at least Microsoft Excel), which can be a costly investment if all you want to do is open, view, print, export, or convert delimiter types or such. What you really need to look into is White Peak Software's product entitled Killink CSV (which despite having CSV in the name, really parses basically any delimited text / data file and allows you to edit such files directly). This product allows you to edit comma and tab delimited files easily, and much more.

The software has a nice clean, streamlined interface that is quite intuitive to use. It is also responsive and speedy, which is a definite plus when opening files containing tens of thousands of rows. Here's a sample of what the GUI (Graphical User Interface) looks like presenting the contents of a delimited file - it looks rather similar to Excel, without all the bloat.



This software comes in very handy if you get download files from you online banking in comma or tab delimited form, or from a brokerage (stock transactions perhaps), exports from SQL Databases, you name it. You quickly have a way to view, print, edit, and otherwise manipulate this data in an easy and efficient manner using White Peak's delimited data editor now.

Check it out! They offer a free trial download, and the price is extraordinarily reasonable ($27 USD for a single-user license, and if you need a site-wide license for your enterprise applications and programmers, it's only $497.00). At prices like this, you will save that much instantly by avoiding the frustration of trying to view delimited data in something like Windows Notepad or Wordpad, and with the company-wide license, you will cover your organization's needs for much less than what you could ever hire a consultant to build such a product for.

Bottom line: it's a no-brainer to purchase this product if you work with text-based data files even once per year on average. If you are buying this for a company, it's certainly a write-off and the price is less than a single dinner meeting - making the expense nothing more than a petty-cash transaction (which, from experience, makes it super simple to get management approval to order such software to help in your day-to-day job). I'm no accountant, but I would think that if you were using this product personally to process banking records, stock/investment transaction files, and such, it too could be a valid deduction - at least worth a look if you care to save even more. So, now is a good time to go download the .CSV Editor trial and enjoy saving time and increasing your productivity.

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