Why is my text returned unchanged?

Because it needs no escaping. RFC 4180 only requires quoting when the field contains the delimiter, a double quote, or a line break. Wrapping every field in quotes is legal but noisy, so the tool leaves plain values alone.

How are quotes inside the field handled?

They are doubled, not backslash-escaped. He said "hi" becomes "He said ""hi""" — the outer pair delimits the field, each inner quote is written twice. CSV has no backslash escape at all.

Can I use a semicolon or a tab?

Yes. Choose the delimiter above the editor and the quoting decision follows it: a field containing ; is quoted when semicolon is the delimiter, and left alone when comma is.

CSV Escape — A Field That Keeps Its Column

Quote a CSV field only when RFC 4180 requires it, doubling any inner quotes. Pick your delimiter, and the field lands in one cell, not three.

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Delimiter

Swap: CSV Escaped → Text

Text input

CSV Escaped output

What this tool does

It applies the RFC 4180 field rule, which is conditional rather than systematic. The field is wrapped in double quotes only if it contains one of:

the delimiter you selected (, by default, or ;, tab, |);
a double quote — which is then doubled inside the field;
a carriage return or a line feed.

Otherwise the text comes back untouched. That is not the tool doing nothing: a value with no special character is already a valid CSV field, and quoting it anyway would add noise that some parsers carry into the imported value.

When you need it

Building a CSV line by hand, or checking why a spreadsheet split one value across two columns. The usual culprit is a comma inside an address or a product name — paste it here and the correctly quoted form comes back.

What it does not do

It escapes one field, not a whole row or file. Line breaks inside a quoted field are legal CSV and are preserved as they are; it is up to the consuming parser to read them as part of the value rather than as a new record.

Private by design

Everything runs locally in your browser with JavaScript. Your data is never uploaded, which makes the tool safe for sensitive content, and it keeps working offline.

Frequently asked questions

Why is my text returned unchanged?: Because it needs no escaping. RFC 4180 only requires quoting when the field contains the delimiter, a double quote, or a line break. Wrapping every field in quotes is legal but noisy, so the tool leaves plain values alone.
How are quotes inside the field handled?: They are doubled, not backslash-escaped. He said "hi" becomes "He said ""hi""" — the outer pair delimits the field, each inner quote is written twice. CSV has no backslash escape at all.
Can I use a semicolon or a tab?: Yes. Choose the delimiter above the editor and the quoting decision follows it: a field containing ; is quoted when semicolon is the delimiter, and left alone when comma is.