Excel is an Microsoft spreadsheet program and its extension is .xls or .xlsx. Now we as Linux user can convert xls file to csv file in Linux and .xls to .csv. This quick guide will help you how we can convert xls file to csv file in Linux using program called SSConvert and Unoconv.

Convert xls file to csv file in Linux.

1. Installing SSConvert to convert xls file to csv file in Linux

For REDHAT ,CENTOS and FEDORA.

yum install gnumeric

For UBUNTU and DEBIAN.

apt-get install gnumeric

Now to show demo on how to convert xls file to csv file in Linux. I am creating sample csv file as below:

# cat example.csv
surname,name,age
Manmohan,Mirkar,23
Vikrant,Shinde,46
Nilesh,Patil,69
Vipul,Marathe,23
#

So Firstly we will convert this file to xls.

# ssconvert example.csv myexcel.xls

In case you need xlsx file extension use below command:

# ssconvert example.csv myexcel.xlsx

You can also reconfirm file type using the file command as below:

# file example.csv
example.csv: ASCII text, with CRLF line terminators
# file myexcel.xls
myexcel.xls: Composite Document File V2 Document, Little Endian, Os: Windows, Version 4.10, Code page: 1252, Create Time/Date: Tue May  2 13:30:10 2017
# file myexcel.xlsx
myexcel.xlsx: Microsoft OOXML
#

Now lets convert this xls back to new csv file.

# ssconvert myexcel.xls mynewcsv.csv
# file mynewcsv.csv
mynewcsv.csv: ASCII text
# cat mynewcsv.csv
surname,name,age
Manmohan,Mirkar,23
Vikrant,Shinde,46
Nilesh,Patil,69
Vipul,Marathe,23
#

Even you can change the delimiter other than comma if you want. So lets take “;” as delimiter.

# ssconvert -O 'separator=; format=raw' myexcel.xls new_delimitor.txt
# file new_delimitor.txt
new_delimitor.txt: ASCII text
# cat new_delimitor.txt
surname;name;age
Manmohan;Mirkar;23
Vikrant;Shinde;46
Nilesh;Patil;69
Vipul;Marathe;23
#

2. Installing unoconv program to convert xls file to csv file in Linux

For REDHAT ,CENTOS and FEDORA.

yum install unoconv

For UBUNTU and DEBIAN.

apt-get install unoconv

For showing demo to convert xls file to csv file in Linux we will be renaming our old example file as example1.csv.

# cp example.csv example1.csv
# cat example1.csv
surname,name,age
Manmohan,Mirkar,23
Vikrant,Shinde,46
Nilesh,Patil,69
Vipul,Marathe,23
#

Now lets convert this “example1.csv” to xls file.

#unoconv --format  xls example1.csv

This will create new “example1.xls” file in the same directory. In case you want to convert to xlsx format command would be:

#  unoconv --format  xlsx example1.csv

Now lets convert xls file to csv file in Linux.

#unoconv --format csv example1.xls

Now lets check the file type of the generated files:

# file example1.xls
example1.xls: Composite Document File V2 Document, Little Endian, Os: Windows, Version 1.0, Code page: -535, Revision Number: 0
# file example1.xlsx
example1.xlsx: Microsoft OOXML
# file example1.csv
example1.csv: ASCII text
#