← Excel Data Cleanup
Lesson 1 of 4
Import without losing data
Keep quoted text and stable headers when importing CSV.
Do the work
- Read the headers before changing any values.
- A comma inside quotes belongs to the same cell. A doubled quote represents a literal quote.
- Remove blank records, keep data rows and preserve notes.
See the method
A customer note such as "Desk, blue" stays in one field.
Read every demonstration step
- A customer note such as "Desk, blue" stays in one field.
- Parse the CSV, inspect the grid and remove only the entirely empty record.
- Export CSV and reopen it to check the quoted note.
Watch the walkthrough
Read the video transcript
- Import without losing data. A customer note such as "Desk, blue" stays in one field.
- Import without losing data. A blank record can be removed. A quoted comma or quote is part of the note.
- Handle missing values. Before: an empty region does not mean East.
- Handle missing values. Only the missing region changes. Zero is a valid amount.
- Deduplicate by a business key. Order 1 appears twice with different notes.
- Deduplicate by a business key. Whole-row comparison misses the duplicate business key.
- Standardize dates and whitespace. 2026/09/03 becomes 2026-09-03.
- Standardize dates and whitespace. Convert only the declared format and preserve the name.
The video works through all four course topics; the demonstration above focuses on this lesson.
Practice independently
Exercise 1
Rescue a quoted sales file
Open practice →Exercise 2Preserve a multiline delivery note
Open practice →Take it further
Try a note containing a newline; the CSV parser preserves it in the same cell.