this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2026
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No Stupid Questions
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Hahahahahaha
You’re describing a tabular data editor, not a spreadsheet which is designed for calculation.
Do you have any tabular data editors to recommend?
Moderncsv or visidata don't do everything you want, but might merit looks.
I’d start by putting the data in JSON because TSV/CSV is brittle and old.
There are many tools for tabular JSON.
I was going to complain that clearly "spreadsheet" derives from paper-based tabular data editors. But apparently that term was only used consistently after 1906, while digital spreadsheets that aided calculation were conceived of in 1961. Meaning that it has meant a digital calculation aid for longer (65 years) than it only meant a tabular data editor (55 years).
Format your cells to be text and there should be no data related behavior like you describe.
Libreoffice calc. Just go into the settings an disable some (many) of the smort defaults
LibreOffice won't do tables, ever.
Sounds like you need to start working with databases
AFAIK, when you save to CSV with Excel it doesn't add anything.
But you won't have a Table either, as that requires saving to an Excel format.
As for the rest just format your columns as "text" in Excel.
You could create the Table, do your sorting, and still save as CSV - it'll retain the sort but won't save the Table settings so you'd have to recreate the Table next time you open it.
Edit: just remembered Excel adds quotes around text - I've always just removed them with a text editor like Notepad+ and Find/Replace.
A CSV?
Prepend every cell entry that you want to be left alone with a single quote. i.e. an apostrophe, not a lone double-quote mark.
Alternatively, most word processors come with a table creator that may allow you to create something that behaves how you need. It's been a while since I did anything quite so complex, so maybe the (un)helpful features have been ported across to those tables too.
But as at least one other comment says, those features are often autocorrect rules and they can be disabled.