Excel and spreadsheet sample data generator

Create realistic tabular data for formulas, pivot tables, dashboards, imports, tutorials and BI prototypes without exposing real customer records.

Generate CSV data →Generate TSV data

Build a useful sample table

Start with a Row Number or UUID, then add dimensions such as customer, country, product and department. Add numeric measures such as quantity and price plus a Date or Datetime column for trends. A controlled Custom List works well for order status, channel or region.

CSV or TSV?

CSV is the safest download when a workbook, BI tool or import wizard expects a file. Values containing commas, quotes or newlines are escaped automatically.
TSV is convenient for copying raw output and pasting directly into Excel or Google Sheets because each tab becomes a new column.

Import cleanly

Keep the header row enabled. Import as UTF-8 so international names and city values remain intact. Tell the spreadsheet whether the delimiter is a comma or tab, then set date and decimal interpretations explicitly when regional settings differ from the exported representation.

Test missing and messy-looking data

Apply Blank % to optional columns instead of filling every cell. Use longer names, addresses and product descriptions to expose clipping in reports. Generate several currencies or statuses with Custom List, but keep each column semantically consistent so formulas and charts remain meaningful.

Example sales schema

order_id      Row Number
order_date    Date (sequential)
customer      Full Name
country       Country
product       Product Name
quantity      Integer (1–8)
unit_price    Price (5–500)
status        Custom List

Stop Excel rewriting your data

A spreadsheet guesses a type for every cell it imports, and the guesses are occasionally destructive. All three of these are silent — the file was fine, the workbook is not:

Leading zeros vanish. A postcode of 01234 becomes the number 1234. Generate a zero-padded ID column and you can prove in one glance whether your import path preserved it.
Long numbers become scientific notation. A 16-digit card or account number shows as 1.23457E+15, and the trailing digits are genuinely gone, not merely hidden.
Text that resembles a date is converted. The classic case is a gene name like SEPT1 becoming a September date — but any 1-2 or 3/4 style value is at risk.

The fix is the same in every case: import rather than open. In Excel use Data → From Text/CSV and set the affected columns to Text in the preview; in Google Sheets use File → Import and turn off Convert text to numbers, dates and formulas. Double-clicking the file gives you no such control.

Regional settings change the file's meaning

Two things differ by locale and both will quietly corrupt an import:

The decimal separator. Much of Europe writes 129,99. Opened under those settings, a comma-delimited file containing 129.99 may split the value across two columns or read it as 12999. TSV removes the delimiter collision entirely, which is the main reason to prefer it here.
Date order. 03/04/2025 is 3 April or 4 March depending on where the workbook thinks it is. The date fields default to ISO 8601 (2025-04-03) precisely because it is unambiguous — keep that format through the import and convert once, deliberately, at the end.

Sizing a sample for pivots and charts

More rows are not better. A sample should be the smallest one that still behaves like the real thing: enough rows per category that a pivot table has something to aggregate — roughly 30 or more — across enough categories to make a chart legible, which usually means five to eight, not fifty. A few hundred to a few thousand rows covers almost every tutorial, dashboard mock-up and formula test. Reserve five-figure exports for testing whether the workbook itself holds up.

Spreadsheet checklist

Headers are short, unique and formula-friendly.
Date and number columns use one consistent format.
Blank rates reflect the scenario being demonstrated.
A seed keeps tutorial screenshots and expected totals stable.
The sample contains enough rows for filters and pivot tables, but not more than the workbook needs.

For bulk database imports, continue with the database seeding guide. For how values are generated and kept private, read the methodology.

Common questions

How do I get sample data into Excel without it mangling the values?

Use Data → From Text/CSV rather than double-clicking the file, and set ID and postcode columns to Text in the import preview. Double-clicking hands the file to Excel's own guesser, which strips leading zeros and reads some codes as dates.

Should I use CSV or TSV for a spreadsheet?

TSV when the data contains commas — free text, addresses, prices written in a locale that uses a comma decimal separator — because a tab is far rarer inside a value than a comma is. CSV otherwise, since more tools accept it without being asked.

Why does my CSV open as one column, or split in the wrong places?

Because the delimiter the spreadsheet expects depends on its regional settings: in locales where the comma is the decimal separator, Excel expects semicolons and reads a comma-delimited file as a single column. Importing rather than opening lets you state the delimiter instead of guessing at it.

How much sample data do I need for a pivot table?

A thousand rows is usually enough to make a pivot behave like a real one — several values per category, a date range wide enough to group by month, and numbers with enough spread that a chart is not a straight line. A hundred rows makes every group too small to be interesting.

Can I get a real .xlsx file rather than a CSV?

Yes. The Excel export writes an actual workbook rather than a renamed CSV, so column types survive the round trip and Excel opens it without an import dialogue at all.

Last updated 6 September 2026