Clean CSV Whitespace: Trim Spaces, Tabs and Nonbreaking Spaces

Complete the task

1. Paste a table with its header, or open a local UTF-8 CSV or TSV file. Choose the input delimiter and read the table before selecting columns.
2. Select the columns to clean. Edge trimming and nonbreaking-space replacement start enabled; collapsing repeated spaces and tabs starts disabled. Enable collapse only when that matches your data rule.
3. Clean selected columns and inspect the changed-cell count and preview. Review the CSV export options, then copy or download the cleaned table. The source file is never overwritten.

Worked example

Load the built-in five-row order table, select only customer and keep the default cleanup switches. Exactly 2 cells change: the two copies of the padded Ana Müller label lose their edge spaces. Sam Taylor keeps its two internal spaces. Enable Collapse repeated spaces & tabs and run again to change 3 cells, including Sam Taylor. The five order IDs, all amounts and the duplicate order remain in place.

Method and limits

Cleanup handles ordinary spaces and tabs plus the explicit U+00A0 nonbreaking-space replacement. It does not remove every invisible Unicode character. Headers and unselected columns are unchanged; embedded line breaks remain within their fields. Removing duplicates is a separate task. Inputs require a rectangular headered table and are limited to 5 MiB of UTF-8 text, 20,000 data records, 200 columns and 250,000 cells including headers. CSV does not store Excel cell types. Export protection starts enabled and may prefix an apostrophe to formula-like values, including negative amounts; the preview shows values before that option is applied.