File Setup To build a CSV file to open in Microsoft Excel, you'll need to decide how many columns you'll use in Microsoft Excel for the categories of information you're preparing in Notepad.

Using the Excel Text to Column feature, you can choose how to split the column up, fix the width, or split at each comma, period, or other characters.

How to Convert Excel to Text & Set Column Width. Each Microsoft Excel worksheet is broken up into cells. Each cell is part of a column.