Add your XLS file
Drop one or more .xls files onto the converter above, or browse for them. They load into browser memory only — nothing is uploaded, so there is no size-based pricing and no server queue.
XLS to TSV
Converting a .xls file to .tsv extracts the document's content from its office package into a portable form. Free, private, and validated — the file never leaves your browser.
Private for supported formats — processed in your browser
Runs on your deviceConvert supported files
Drop XLS files here
Batch files can each use a different output. Nothing uploads for local conversions.
Working inputs include camera RAW, browser-local audio/video, PDF, CBZ/CBR comics, office documents, ebooks, markup, 3D models, structured text, images, and archives.About converting Excel workbook to TSV table
Converting a .xls file to .tsv extracts the document's content from its office package into a portable form. An .xls file is a legacy Microsoft Excel workbook in the binary BIFF format, Excel's default from its earliest releases through Excel 2003. Each sheet is a stream of typed binary records — cells, formulas, formats — rather than anything textual.
A .tsv file stores a table as plain text with one record per line and a tab character between columns. It is CSV's stricter sibling: because literal tabs almost never occur inside data, most TSV files need no quoting rules at all. For this route the practical draw is trivially parseable — split each line on tab, no state machine required and pastes directly into and out of Excel and Google Sheets, because spreadsheet clipboards already speak tabs — balanced against a single stray tab inside a value silently shifts every following column, which is worth knowing before you commit a large batch.
Why convert XLS to TSV?
The practical trigger for this conversion is usually a mismatch: with .xls, the 65,536-row ceiling truncates modern datasets. Switching to .tsv buys you trivially parseable — split each line on tab, no state machine required, which is why it is the better fit for database dumps — PostgreSQL's COPY and MySQL's SELECT INTO OUTFILE default to tabs. Because the conversion runs locally, trying it costs nothing but a few seconds of compute on your own machine.
XLS vs TSV at a glance
| Aspect | Excel workbook (.xls) | TSV table (.tsv) |
|---|---|---|
| Format type | Text-based — characters and structure, so there is no visual quality loss | Text-based — characters and structure, so there is no visual quality loss |
| How it stores data | composed of typed binary records (id, length, payload) — LABELSST for shared-string cells, FORMULA for calculations, and hundreds more | one record per newline-terminated line, with fields split on the tab character (U+0009) |
| Strongest at | reading exports from ERP, banking, and lab systems that still emit .xls | database dumps — PostgreSQL's COPY and MySQL's SELECT INTO OUTFILE default to tabs |
| Weak spot | the 65,536-row ceiling truncates modern datasets | a single stray tab inside a value silently shifts every following column |
Pick TSV as the output
Select .tsv in the output menu next to each file. The menu only offers targets this engine can genuinely produce, so if TSV is selectable, the route is real and validated.
Convert on your device
Press Convert. The package is unzipped in memory and its XML content parsed locally; nothing is uploaded.
Verify and download
Each result is signature-checked before the download unlocks, so a failed encode can never masquerade as a valid TSV file. Outputs keep the original filename with the .tsv extension.
XLS to TSV questions, answered
Will converting XLS to TSV lose quality?
There is no visual quality to lose — xls is text-oriented and tsv is text-oriented, so the question is structural fidelity. Text, ordering, and basic structure are preserved; complex layout, embedded objects, and styling beyond the target's model are simplified.
Is it private to convert XLS files here?
Yes — the .xls file is processed inside your browser tab and never uploaded. The package is unzipped in memory and its XML content parsed locally; nothing is uploaded. Close the tab and the file is gone from memory.
Where will the TSV file work?
Every spreadsheet application imports TSV, command-line tools handle it natively, and any text editor opens it — though column alignment on screen can be misleading. Browsers treat it as downloadable plain text.
Will the TSV file be bigger or smaller than my XLS?
It depends on the content: one record per newline-terminated line, with fields split on the tab character (U+0009). Convert one representative file first and compare before batch-processing a large set.
What happens to the metadata in my XLS file?
In .xls, summaryInformation streams in the compound file record author, company, and creation and modification timestamps. Re-encoding through the browser pipeline does not carry embedded metadata into the output, which doubles as a privacy scrub — check the exported file if you specifically need tags preserved.