Convert a Concordance DAT to CSV
A Concordance DAT looks like gibberish in a text editor because its delimiters aren't commas — they're the non-printing control characters ¶ (field) and þ (text qualifier), with in-value line breaks stored as ®. Open one in Excel directly and you get a single mangled column. To work with the metadata in a spreadsheet you first have to translate those delimiters into standard CSV.
This converter parses the DAT with the correct Concordance character set, then re-serializes it as RFC 4180 CSV: comma-separated, with any cell that contains a comma, quote or line break wrapped in double quotes and internal quotes doubled. The ® markers that stored in-value line breaks become real newlines inside quoted cells, so a multi-line extracted-text field opens correctly in Excel instead of spilling across rows. Column order is preserved exactly as it appeared in the DAT header.
It's the fastest way to review a production's metadata in a tool everyone already has, to hand a field list to someone without e-discovery software, or to spot-check Bates ranges and custodians. And because it runs locally, the DAT — text, custodians and all — never leaves your browser.
Open the converter — free, no upload
How to convert DAT to CSV
- Drop the .dat file into the converter.
- Leave the target format on CSV.
- Convert and download the .csv.
- Open it in Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers — the columns line up because the delimiters are now standard.
Questions
Why can't I just rename the .dat to .csv?
Because a DAT isn't comma-delimited. Its separators are control characters (¶ and þ). Renaming changes nothing; you'd still see one garbled column. The conversion actually rewrites the delimiters.
Will multi-line text fields break the spreadsheet?
No. In-value line breaks are stored in the DAT as the ® marker. The converter turns them into real newlines inside a properly quoted CSV cell, so Excel keeps them in one cell instead of splitting the row.
Can I convert the CSV back to a DAT later?
Yes. CSV → DAT is supported and lossless for the field data, so you can edit metadata in a spreadsheet and re-emit a Concordance DAT for import.