How to vertically align comma separated values in Notepad++?

Question

As shown in the picture "Before" below, each column separated by comma is not aligned neatedly. Is there any method to align each column vertically like the display effect in Excel?

The effect I wish is shown in the picture "After".

Thanks to @Martin S , I can align the file like the picture "Method_1". As he has mentioned, some characters still cannot align well. I was wondering if this method could be improved?

Answer 1

As noted in the comments not TextFX (32-bit only, Line Up feature has a not expected formatting), nor NppTextFX2 (64-bit only, Line Up feature is removed).

Another solution is ElasticTabstops: https://github.com/mariusv-github/ElasticTabstops (archive: https://github.com/dail8859/ElasticTabstops)

Side works:

• https://github.com/rainman74/NPPTextFX2

To test:

1. Replace column separator character to tabulation character or, for example, copy table from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Visual_C%2B%2B into new tab.
2. (optionally) Check plugins->Elastic Tabstops->Enable, plugins->Elastic Tabstops->Selection only to convert into table view on-a-fly for a selected text. You can even use a block selection (ALT+SHIFT) to immediately select a formatted piece of text.
3. Select plugins->Elastic Tabstops->Convert Elastic Tabs to Spaces

Answer 2

Notepad++ CSVLint

• Install CSVLint Plugin (Plugins > Plugins Admin... > CSV Lint)
• Open CSV file. Or manually set Language > CSVLint. This will give you nicely colored output.

To reformat do this:

• Open lower pane: Plugins > CSV Lint > CSV Lint Window.
• Click the Reformat button. Check the box Align vertically (not recommended). -- This may screw up your data, so think twice before clicking OK.

Reformatted output:

FYI: You can use the Trim all values checkbox to reformat back.

If you want to try this yourself: Here is my sample input:

TIMESTAMP_START,TIMESTAMP_END,TA_ERA,TA_ERA_NIGHT,TA_ERA_NIGHT_SD,TA_ERA_DAY,DA_ERA_DAY_SD,SW_IN_ERA,HH,DD,WW-YY,SW_IN_F,HH
19890101,19890107,3.436,1.509,2.165,6.134,2.889,100.233,283.946,1.373,99.852,2.748,1.188
19890108,19890114,3.814,2.446,2.014,5.728,2.526,91.708,286.451,1.575,100,100.841,0.742

Notepad++ plugins are fragile. This worked for me on Notepad++ v8.4.2 (32-bit). So if this doesn't work you, then consider switching from 64-bit to 32-bit and also downgrading to this exact version and bit-ness.

Related: CSVLint demo video, CSVLint Documentation on GitHub

Answer 3

You can use the TextFX plugin:

• TextFX > TextFX Edit > Line up multiple lines by ...

Note: This doesn't work if the file is read only.

http://tomaslind.net/2016/02/18/how-to-align-columns-in-notepad/

Update 2019: Download link from SourceForge

Answer 4

Maybe not exactly what you're looking for, but I recently added a CSV Lint plug-in to Notepad++ which also adds syntax highlighting for csv and fixed width data files, meaning each column gets a different color so it's easier to see.

Answer 5

You can use this python plugin script which utilizes the csv library which takes care of quoted csv and many other variants.

Setup:

1. Use the plugin manager in Notepad++ to install the "Python script" plugin.
2. Plugins->Python Script->New Script (name it something like CSVtoTable.py)
3. Paste the following python script into the new file and save:

CSVtoTable.py

import csv

inputlines = editor.getText().split('\n')
# Get rid of empty lines
inputlines = [line.strip() for line in inputlines if line.strip()]
reader = csv.reader(inputlines, delimiter=',')
csvlist = [line for line in reader]
# transpose to calculate the column widths and create a format string which left aligns each row
t_csvlist = zip(*csvlist)
col_widths = [max([len(x) for x in t_csvlist[y]]) for y in range(len(t_csvlist))]
# To right align - change < to >
fmt_str = ' '.join(['{{:<{0}}}'.format(x) for x in col_widths]) + '\r\n'

text = []
for line in csvlist: 
    text.append(fmt_str.format(*line))

# open a new document and put the results in there.    
notepad.new()
editor.addText(''.join(text))

4. Open your CSV file in notepad++
5. Click on Plugins->Python Script->Scripts->(The name you used in step 2)
6. A new tab with the formatted data should open.

Update (right aligned numbers & left aligned strings):

Use the following python script if you want to right align number fields from the CSV - it looks at the second line of the csv to determine the types of the fields.

import csv
import re

num_re = re.compile('[-\+]?\d+(\.\d+)?')

inputlines = editor.getText().split('\n')
# Get rid of empty lines
inputlines = [line.strip() for line in inputlines if line.strip()]
reader = csv.reader(inputlines, delimiter=',')
csvlist = [line for line in reader]

# Transpose to calculate the column widths and create a format string which left aligns each row
t_csvlist = zip(*csvlist)
col_widths = [max([len(x) for x in t_csvlist[y]]) for y in range(len(t_csvlist))]

# Numbers get right aligned
type_eval_line = csvlist[1 if len(csvlist)>1 else 0]
alignment = ['>' if num_re.match(item) else '<' for item in type_eval_line]

# Compute the format string
fmt_str = ' '.join(['{{:{0}{1}}}'.format(a,x) for x,a in zip(col_widths,alignment)]) + '\r\n'

text = []
for line in csvlist: 
    text.append(fmt_str.format(*line))

# open a new document and put the results in there.    
notepad.new()
editor.addText(''.join(text))

Answer 6

You could use Search&Replace to change all occurrences of , to ,\t. This will add a tab after each ,.

This method has however some drawbacks:

1. you effectively add white-space characters to your document (in case you need to edit and save it).
2. This works well only if the difference (in terms of number of characters) between the longest and the shortest numbers is less than 1 tab-size (usually 4 characters).