CSV to XML

What this tool does

This tool converts CSV data into XML, the structured, tag-based format many systems rely on. Paste your CSV or upload a file, and it wraps each row and value in clean XML tags you can copy and use. Everything runs in your browser, so your data is never uploaded.

How to use it

1. Paste your CSV into the box, or upload a .csv file.
2. Press Convert to generate the XML.
3. Use Copy to grab the result. Reset clears the box.

How it works

The tool reads your CSV with PapaParse, treating the first line as column names, then builds the XML: every data row becomes a <row> element, and within it each value sits inside a tag named after its column, all wrapped in a single <root> element. Any special characters that would break the markup, such as <, >, and &, are automatically escaped so ordinary text values do not break the XML. For best results, use simple column names without spaces or unusual symbols, because the headers become tag names. It runs entirely on your device.

A worked example

Starting from this CSV:

name,age,city
Alice,30,London
Bob,25,Paris

The tool produces this XML, using your column headers as the tag names:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<root>
  <row>
    <name>Alice</name>
    <age>30</age>
    <city>London</city>
  </row>
  <row>
    <name>Bob</name>
    <age>25</age>
    <city>Paris</city>
  </row>
</root>

Because the headers become tag names, it helps if they are simple words without spaces or unusual symbols, the way valid XML tags need to be.

What XML is, and where it is used

XML, short for eXtensible Markup Language, is a way of structuring data with nested tags, a bit like HTML but for data rather than web pages. It is verbose compared to JSON, but that structure and strictness is exactly why it has long been trusted in places that value precision.

You will still find XML at the heart of a lot of software: enterprise and business systems exchanging data, configuration files, RSS and Atom feeds, older web services built on SOAP, and even the modern Office formats, since a .docx or .xlsx file is really XML inside a zip. So this conversion earns its keep whenever you need to hand tabular data to a system that speaks XML rather than JSON or CSV. If your target is different, the CSV to JSON tool produces JSON, and CSV to Excel builds a spreadsheet.

Questions people ask