Tablecruncher alternative
Intact CSV Editor vs Tablecruncher
A CSV editor built to open files too big for everything else and to change them with JavaScript macros. Intact CSV Editor does 70 things we did not find in Tablecruncher's manual or on its website — byte-for-byte saving, SQL queries and Parquet files among them — and 18 of the 19 features Tablecruncher lists.
70
things Intact CSV Editor does that we did not find in Tablecruncher's manual or on its website, of the 80 we compared.
18 / 19
of the features Tablecruncher lists are in Intact CSV Editor too.
0
of the features Tablecruncher lists Intact CSV Editor does not have yet.
Where Intact CSV Editor is ahead
70 things we did not find in Tablecruncher's manual or on its website.
We read the manual (v1.8), the home page and the tutorials on 3 September 2026, and looked for each of them there.
Keeping data intact
- Keeps the byte-order mark
- Every character set compared side by side before you choose
- Keeps comment lines
- Mainframe EBCDIC code pages
- Refuses a character the encoding cannot hold
- Saves a file back byte for byte
- A workbook saved back with its other sheets, formats and charts
Opening files
- Delta Lake and Iceberg tables
- Fixed-width files, with layouts you can keep
- Rules for the files in a folder
- A file followed as it grows, like tail -f
- GeoJSON and TOML
- Tables from web pages
- Log files read into columns by a pattern
- OpenDocument spreadsheets
- Parquet, Avro, ORC and Arrow, read and written
- Only part of a huge file opened
- Python pickles, Feather and MessagePack
- Quick Open by a few letters of a file's name
- NetCDF and HDF5 scientific data
- SQLite databases
- SPSS, Stata, SAS, R and MATLAB files
- Open a file from a link
- The value labels of an SPSS or Stata survey kept
- vCards and your Mac's Contacts
- Workspaces: the open files and their filters kept under a name
- Old .xls and binary .xlsb workbooks
- Excel workbooks, opened and saved as workbooks
Editing and cleaning
- The column's own values offered as you type
- Clusters of similar values, merged on request
- A filter on every column heading, with counts
- The file edited as text, then read back as a table
- Fill handle that continues a series
- Find and replace across every file in a folder
- JSON inside a cell, edited as a tree
- Matches lit in colours and kept for next time
- One change made in every selected cell, as several cursors would
- Sort by several columns, then back to the file's order
- Paste from the history of recent copies
- Reshape: wide to long, a cell split into rows
- A column's spelling checked
- Stack several files into one
Analysis
- Charts with trend lines, saved as SVG
- Compare two files, value by value
- Bars, sparklines and ranks inside the table
- Rules written as, and read from, a JSON Schema
- Look values up in another table
- Summaries and pivot tables with subtotals
- Rules for each column, checked on every row
- SQL across every open file
- Statistics for every column
- A web service asked about each row
Automation
- AppleScript and Shortcuts
- A command-line tool and links into the app
- Files converted from the command line, with no window
- Shortcuts you can change, sequences too
- A command palette
- Send the table through any program
Export
- Copy as Markdown, JSON, SQL, HTML and more
- Word and rich text
- Export to more than 30 formats
- HTML tables that sort themselves
- PDF export, PDF/A too
- Saved export presets
Safety
- A copy kept before every save
- Lock a file against changes
- Unsaved work recovered after a crash
- Settings kept in a small file beside the data
- Knows when another program changes the file
On the Mac
- Eight languages
Side by side
Every feature we compared.
| Feature |  Intact CSV Editor | Tablecruncher |
|---|---|---|
| Keeping data intact | ||
| Saves a file back byte for byte | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Detects the text encoding | Intact CSV Editor | Documented |
| Mainframe EBCDIC code pages | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Keeps the byte-order mark | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Keeps comment lines | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Refuses a character the encoding cannot hold | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Quoting per column and per cell | Intact CSV Editor | In part |
| A workbook saved back with its other sheets, formats and charts | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Every character set compared side by side before you choose | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Opening files | ||
| Separator, quotes and line endings detected and shown | Intact CSV Editor | Documented |
| Excel workbooks, opened and saved as workbooks | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| OpenDocument spreadsheets | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| JSON, JSON Lines, YAML and XML as tables | Intact CSV Editor | In part |
| Parquet, Avro, ORC and Arrow, read and written | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| SPSS, Stata, SAS, R and MATLAB files | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| SQLite databases | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Old .xls and binary .xlsb workbooks | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Delta Lake and Iceberg tables | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| NetCDF and HDF5 scientific data | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Python pickles, Feather and MessagePack | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| GeoJSON and TOML | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| The value labels of an SPSS or Stata survey kept | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Tables from web pages | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| vCards and your Mac's Contacts | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Log files read into columns by a pattern | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Open a file from a link | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Fixed-width files, with layouts you can keep | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Millions of rows | Intact CSV Editor | Documented |
| Rules for the files in a folder | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Only part of a huge file opened | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| A file followed as it grows, like tail -f | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Quick Open by a few letters of a file's name | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Workspaces: the open files and their filters kept under a name | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Editing and cleaning | ||
| The column's own values offered as you type | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Fill handle that continues a series | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| JSON inside a cell, edited as a tree | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Find and replace with regular expressions and a preview | Intact CSV Editor | Documented |
| A filter on every column heading, with counts | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Sort by several columns, then back to the file's order | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Duplicates judged on the columns you choose | Intact CSV Editor | In part |
| Rewrite dates and number formats | Intact CSV Editor | In part |
| Reshape: wide to long, a cell split into rows | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Stack several files into one | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Clusters of similar values, merged on request | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| One change made in every selected cell, as several cursors would | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Paste from the history of recent copies | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| The file edited as text, then read back as a table | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Find and replace across every file in a folder | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Matches lit in colours and kept for next time | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| A column's spelling checked | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Analysis | ||
| SQL across every open file | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Summaries and pivot tables with subtotals | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Statistics for every column | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Look values up in another table | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Compare two files, value by value | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Rules for each column, checked on every row | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Charts with trend lines, saved as SVG | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Bars, sparklines and ranks inside the table | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Rules written as, and read from, a JSON Schema | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| A web service asked about each row | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Automation | ||
| JavaScript macros | Intact CSV Editor | Documented |
| Send the table through any program | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| AppleScript and Shortcuts | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| A command-line tool and links into the app | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Files converted from the command line, with no window | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| A command palette | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Shortcuts you can change, sequences too | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Export | ||
| Export to more than 30 formats | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| PDF export, PDF/A too | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Word and rich text | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Copy as Markdown, JSON, SQL, HTML and more | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| HTML tables that sort themselves | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Saved export presets | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Split a file into several | Intact CSV Editor | Documented |
| Safety | ||
| A copy kept before every save | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Unsaved work recovered after a crash | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Knows when another program changes the file | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Lock a file against changes | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| Settings kept in a small file beside the data | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
| On the Mac | ||
| Eight languages | Intact CSV Editor | —Not in their documentation |
DocumentedDocumentedIn partIn part—Not in their documentationNot in their documentation·Not comparedNot compared
Choose Intact CSV Editor if…
- You write macros: Intact CSV Editor's macros use Tablecruncher's vocabulary —
getString,setCell,ROWMINand the rest. - Your files must come back exactly as they came — byte for byte, in their own separator, quoting, encoding and line endings.
- You open more than CSV: Excel (old .xls too), JSON, Parquet, Delta Lake, SPSS, Stata, SAS, NetCDF, EBCDIC and more — and export to 38 formats.
- You want SQL across files, charts, column rules, file comparison and a backup before every save, in one app.
- You work on a Mac and want an app made for it, in eight languages, from a company in Zürich you can call.
TChoose Tablecruncher if…
- A browser version, for machines where nothing can be installed.
- A focused, small tool.
Intact CSV Editor's macros use the same vocabulary as Tablecruncher's — getString, setCell, ROWMIN and the rest — so a Tablecruncher macro runs here.
| Intact CSV Editor | Tablecruncher | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Native Mac editor for CSV and 42 other kinds of data file | Large-file CSV editor with macros |
| Runs on | Mac (macOS 14 or later) | Desktop app, plus a browser version |
| Only here | 70 of the 80 features we compared | 0 of the 19 features it lists |
In fairness
Where Tablecruncher is ahead
Going by its documentation, in no feature: all 19 that Tablecruncher lists are in Intact CSV Editor. It may still be the better choice for you — see above.
Sources
https://tablecruncher.com — read 3 September 2026: the manual (v1.8), the home page and the tutorials. Product names belong to their owners. Found something out of date? Tell us.
Everything Tablecruncher documents — 19 features, and whether Intact CSV Editor does it
| Tablecruncher documents | In Intact CSV Editor |
|---|---|
| Row flagging — mark rows by hand and act on the marks | Yes |
| Flag the rows that a search matched | Yes |
| A macro language over the table | Yes |
| Split one file into several by row count | Yes |
| Merge two columns with a glue string, and split a column at the first occurrence of a string | Yes |
| Check data consistency and flag the rows that fail | Yes |
| Jump to a cell by column name | Yes |
| Paste into the selection without parsing it as CSV | Yes |
| Type a newline or a tab into a cell | Yes |
| A mark on cells that hold more than one line | Yes |
| Quoting: around all strings | Yes |
| Undo that can be turned off | Yes |
| A browser version of the app | Not applicable |
| Opening files over 2 GB / 15 million rows | Yes |
| Format detection with a manual override | Yes |
| JSON export, as objects or as arrays | Yes |
Regular expressions in find and replace, with $1 backreferences | Yes |
| Sort by clicking or right-clicking a column header | Yes |
| Four themes including dark | Yes |
Questions
About this comparison
Is Intact CSV Editor a good alternative to Tablecruncher?
For most people who work on a Mac, yes. It does 18 of the 19 features Tablecruncher lists, and 70 things we did not find in Tablecruncher's manual or on its website — byte-for-byte saving, SQL queries and Parquet files among them. Where Tablecruncher is ahead is listed on this page too.
Does Intact CSV Editor have more features than Tablecruncher?
Of the 80 features of Intact CSV Editor we looked for in Tablecruncher's manual or on its website, we found 10, some of them only in part; the other 70 we did not find. The other way round, Intact CSV Editor lacks 0 of the 19 features Tablecruncher lists.
How was this comparison made?
We read the manual (v1.8), the home page and the tutorials on 3 September 2026. Every feature Tablecruncher lists was checked against Intact CSV Editor, and every one of Intact CSV Editor's was looked for in Tablecruncher's pages. A dash means we found nothing like it there; Tablecruncher may do more than it documents. If something has changed, write to info@marketvision.ch and we will correct it.
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