Features / development build
Everything Prooftable does, with an example of each.
Each example uses invented data. Every change shows in the preview before anything is saved, and saving writes a new copy in a new folder. The full rules for each feature are in the feature reference.
Open CSV, TSV and Excel files, in the encoding they were saved in
Pick a file and Prooftable shows its first rows before anything else, with the text encoding, separator and header row beside them. Change one and the sample updates at once. A file saved by an older system in Windows-1252 opens without a second pick.
| Read as | name | note |
|---|---|---|
| UTF-8 | Doesn’t open: the bytes aren’t UTF-8. Choose another encoding. | |
| Windows-1252 | Zoë Müller | “quoted” €5 |
Encodings: UTF-8, UTF-8 with BOM, UTF-16 LE and BE, Windows-1252 and ISO-8859-1. Separators: comma, semicolon, tab and pipe. Excel .xlsx sheets open as plain text: 007 keeps its zero and date cells read 2024-03-01. Saved copies are always UTF-8.
Trim stray spaces
Removes spaces and tabs at the start and end of values in the columns you choose. Spaces inside a value stay. The table marks edge spaces with a dot so you can see them before you trim.
| Before | After |
|---|---|
·ada lovelace· | ada lovelace |
Grace Hopper | Grace Hopper (unchanged) |
Find and replace, including patterns
Search the whole file from the find bar, then choose Replace… to turn the search into a fix for one column. Plain text by default; tick Regular expression for patterns, and use matched groups to rearrange text.
| Find | Replace with | Before | After |
|---|---|---|---|
NYC (whole value) | New York | NYC | New York |
(?i)^new york\s*$ | New York | new york· | New York |
(\w+) (\w+) with groups | $2, $1 | Grace Hopper | Hopper, Grace |
Fixes run in the order listed, after trimming. Patterns use a linear-time matcher with size limits.
Letter case
UPPER CASE, lower case or Title Case for a column. Numbers and symbols stay as they are.
| Before | After |
|---|---|
new york | New York |
MANCHESTER | Manchester |
Edit a single value
Fix the one cell a rule can’t: point at a cell and use the pencil, or double-click it. The edit is listed under Steps and shown in the preview like any other fix. It stays with this file and is left out of saved steps.
| Before | After |
|---|---|
alan(at)example.org | alan@example.org (edited) |
Remove duplicate rows, by whole row or by key
Leave out rows that repeat an earlier row, keeping the first. Compare every column, or only the key columns you tick, such as email. Each left-out row records which row it matched.
| Row | city | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | grace@example.org | NYC | Kept |
| 5 | grace@example.org | New York | Left out: duplicate of row 2 |
Remove blank rows
Leave out rows where every value is empty after trimming.
Required values and value checks
Mark a column as required, or check that its values are a whole number, a decimal number (1.5 or 1,5), a date (YYYY-MM-DD, DD/MM/YYYY or MM/DD/YYYY) or an email address. Values that fail are highlighted and left as they are, and saving waits until each one is resolved.
| Value | Result |
|---|---|
kj@example.org | Passes |
alan(at)example.org | Flagged |
| (empty) | Skipped; use Required for empty values |
Leave problem rows out, into their own file
When a few rows fail a check, choose Leave flagged rows out. The saved copy has the rows that pass; the rows that fail go to problem-rows.json in the same folder, each with the reason, so someone can fix them later.
Choose the saved copy’s columns
Keep, drop, rename and reorder columns for the saved copy, and add new ones: join two columns, or take one part of a column. The review still shows every original column.
| New column | From | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Full name | first + last, joined with a space | Ada + Lovelace → Ada Lovelace |
| Country code | phone, part 1 when split on a space | +44 20 5550 0118 → +44 |
Find, filter and sort the whole file
Search every row or one column, in plain text or with a pattern; show only rows the preview changes, rows with problems, or rows where a column is exactly a value; sort by a column, in number order when its values look like numbers. Only the view changes.
Review every change before saving
Preview highlights each changed value and shows what it was when you point at it. The Changes view lists only what changes; the Problems view lists what needs attention. Rows left out stay visible, struck through, with the reason.
Save a clean copy, in a new folder
Choose comma, semicolon, tab or pipe; LF or CRLF line endings; and a UTF-8 BOM for Excel. Each save makes a new folder with the cleaned file and manifest.json, which records the source and output fingerprints, the settings and every fix. The original file stays as it is.
Saved steps for the next file
Save these steps… stores your fixes and save settings in a small file. Next month, open the new export, choose Use saved steps…, and Prooftable checks the steps fit the file (same separator, header and columns), shows every step, and asks you to confirm Apply before anything changes. Single-value edits stay with the file they were made for. You can save the steps while a check still flags rows: the steps hold no rows.
Help built in
Help › Prooftable Help opens a searchable window with a short topic for each feature, from opening files to saved steps, plus the keyboard shortcuts and what to do when something goes wrong. Open it with ⌘? on a Mac or F1 on Windows and Linux, or from the … menu or the status bar. It is part of the app, so it works offline.
Safety, built in
- Values stay as typed until you choose a fix: leading zeros, dates and numbers are kept as text.
- Prooftable keeps spreadsheet formulas as text and doesn’t run them. A spreadsheet app may run them when it opens the saved copy, and the save options say so.
- Files stay on your computer. There is no account, upload or telemetry.