# csv2po

Convert between CSV (Comma Separated Value) files and the PO format. This is useful for those translators who can only use a Spreadsheet, a modern spreadsheet can open CSV files for editing. It is also useful if you have other data such as translation memory in CSV format and you wish to use it with your PO translations.

If you are starting out with your own CSV files (not created by po2csv), take note of the assumptions of the column layout explained below.

## Usage

    csv2po [options] <csv> <po>
    po2csv [options] <po> <csv>

Where:

<csv> | is a file or directory containing CSV files
<po> | is a file or directory containing PO files

Options (csv2po):

`--version` | show program’s version number and exit
`-h, --help` | show this help message and exit
`--manpage` | output a manpage based on the help
`--progress=PROGRESS`
| show progress as: dots, none, bar, names, verbose
`--errorlevel=ERRORLEVEL`
| show errorlevel as: none, message, exception, traceback
`-iINPUT, --input=INPUT`
| read from INPUT in csv format
`-xEXCLUDE, --exclude=EXCLUDE`
| exclude names matching EXCLUDE from input paths
`-oOUTPUT, --output=OUTPUT`
| write to OUTPUT in po, pot formats
`-tTEMPLATE, --template=TEMPLATE`
| read from TEMPLATE in pot, po, pot formats
`-S, --timestamp`
| skip conversion if the output file has newer timestamp
`--charset=CHARSET`
| set charset to decode from csv files
`--columnorder=COLUMNORDER`
| specify the order and position of columns (location,source,target)
`--duplicates=DUPLICATESTYLE`
| what to do with duplicate strings (identical source text): merge, msgctxt (default: ‘msgctxt’)

Options (po2csv):

`--version` | show program’s version number and exit
`-h, --help` | show this help message and exit
`--manpage` | output a manpage based on the help
`--progress=PROGRESS`
| show progress as: dots, none, bar, names, verbose
`--errorlevel=ERRORLEVEL`
| show errorlevel as: none, message, exception, traceback
`-iINPUT, --input=INPUT`
| read from INPUT in po, pot formats
`-xEXCLUDE, --exclude=EXCLUDE`
| exclude names matching EXCLUDE from input paths
`-oOUTPUT, --output=OUTPUT`
| write to OUTPUT in csv format
`-S, --timestamp`
| skip conversion if the output file has newer timestamp
`-P, --pot` | output PO Templates (.pot) rather than PO files (.po)
`--columnorder=COLUMNORDER`
| specify the order and position of columns (location,source,target)

## CSV file layout

The resultant CSV file has the following layout

Column | Data | Description
--- | --- | ---
A | Location | All the PO #: location comments. These are needed to reconstruct or merge the CSV back into the PO file
B | Source Language | The msgid or source string
C | Target Language | The msgstr or target language

## Examples

These examples demonstrate the use of csv2po:

    po2csv -P pot csv

We use the `-P` option to recognise POT files found in pot and convert them to CSV files placed in csv:

    csv2po csv po

Convert CSV files in csv to PO files placed in po:

    csv2po --charset=windows-1250 -t pot csv po

User working on Windows will often return files encoded in everything but Unicode. In this case we convert CSV files found in csv from windows-1250 to UTF-8 and place the correctly encoded files in po. We use the templates found in pot to ensure that we preserve formatting and other data. Note that UTF-8 is the only available destination encoding.

## Bugs

- Translation comments #[space] and KDE comments _: are not available in CSV mode which effects the translators effectiveness
- Locations #: that are not conformant to PO (i.e. have spaces) will get messed up by PO tools.