You want a CSV, a comma-separated file, to actually have comma’s as separators and NOT semi-colons as your field delimiter!
However, in countries where the comma is used as decimal separator, this is not by default for Excel. Various sources hint to the solution, but none are really complete. You need to do this:
1. Change the system – region settings – additional settings – to use a , as list separator.
2. Change Excel – options – advanced – to not “Use system separators”, but manually set a . as Decimal separator and , as Thousands separator.
3. Then with Excel, save your file as “CSV (Comma Delimited)”
4. Change your Excel setting back to what it was (Use system separators), so you can continue your work like you’re used to.
The trick is that when the list separator is the same as the decimal separator, Excel will default back to keep using the semi-colon, which is what you do not want. So you have to change it to be able to export your CSV correctly. Keep in mind that all decimal fields in your CSV file will now have the . as separator, so you may want to change those fields to text-format in Excel (if you can and do not do any calculations with those fields) so the comma will be also used as decimal separator in your export.
For the visally minded people among us:
I would like to close with a request to the Mickeysoft people to just make an export possible where you can set your delimitor as an option, because this is far from user-friendly. Guess we’ve grown used to this, but I.C.T. should be a way to make life easier, not to make it even more complicated.
Have a nice day!