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About this tool
Pulls chosen columns out of pasted CSV, TSV or fixed-width text, with RFC 4180 quote handling, ranges and negative column numbers.
A text column extractor takes a block of pasted rows and returns only the columns you name — the browser equivalent of `cut -d, -f2,4` or `awk '{print $2}'`. It is for anyone cleaning a log dump, an exported report or a CSV where only two of fifteen columns matter. Splitting follows RFC 4180 for quoted CSV fields, so a comma inside "Rao, Kiran" stays inside that one field instead of shifting every column after it.
Open Text Column Extractor on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Paste your code or data sample into the workspace.
Pick the format, conversion, or analysis you need.
Copy the polished result straight back into your project.
Commas inside double-quoted CSV values do not break the column alignment.
Write 2,4-6 for a set of columns or -1 to take whatever the last column happens to be.
Cut by character position for padded report output that has no separator character.
Paste the text, set the separator to comma, set Header rows to skip to 1 if the file has a header, and type the column number — columns are numbered from 1, so the third column is 3. Leave the quoted-fields option on so values like "Rao, Kiran" stay in one piece.
It counts backwards from the end of each line, so -1 is the last column and -2 the second-to-last. This is useful for log lines where the number of fields varies but the value you want is always at the end.
Yes — switch to fixed-width mode and give character positions such as 1-10,12-20. Positions are 1-based and inclusive, and a bare number like 25 means "from character 25 to the end of the line". This is how mainframe and bank-statement exports are usually laid out.
No. All splitting runs in JavaScript inside your browser tab, so nothing is uploaded and nothing is stored. The tool handles up to 200,000 lines in one paste.