CSV File Viewer on Planet Source Code
We work with hundreds of small CSV files every day. Opening them quickly, checking their contents, and moving on is a surprisingly large part of the job.
I wrote a little read-only application called CSV File Viewer, (with “Bricksoft Viewer” in the title). It loads quickly and leaves the dates as they appear in the file. Excel’s automatic date formatting can be frustrating when all I want to do is see what a file actually contains.
The viewer has its own CSV parser to handle commas and double quotes inside fields and keep track of where each record ends. I also spent time on the small conveniences, including remembering the window’s position and handling a window that was closed while maximized.
There’s a configurable maximum number of lines to load, too. That helps keep larger files manageable on the slower machines at work.
I’ve shared the Visual Basic 6 source on Planet Source Code. If you spend much of your day opening CSV files, give it a try and let me know what you think.
CSV File Viewer: original Planet Source Code submission
Update — November 11, 2026
This little viewer became an everyday tool for our whole team at Knightsbridge. We used it constantly, all day, every day. I also received quite a few emails from people who found it online and started using it themselves. It’s fun to remember how much use came out of such a small utility.
Planet Source Code is now gone, but the Planet Source Code archive on GitHub preserves the submission, screenshot, and source.