Create a Multiline Cell Based CSV File Within Python

Within this short tutorial we will show you the steps required to create a csv file that includes multi-line cells within Python.

In order to create a mutliline cell within Excel (2010/2013) the following is required:

  1. newlines are represented with a carriage return/newline,
  2. the string should be wrapped in quotes.

One of the great things with the Python csv module is it takes care of the quotes for you. Below provides an example,

#!/usr/bin/env python2.7

import csv

multiline_string = “this\nis\nsome\ntext”                # assign string
multiline_string = multiline_string.replace(‘\n’,’\r\n’) # convert newlines to newlines+carriage return

with open(‘xyz.csv’, ‘wb’) as outfile:
w = csv.writer(outfile)                            # assign csv writer method
w.writerow([‘sometext’,multiline_string])          # append/write row to file

 

Rick Donato
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