JSON to CSV

Getting API data into a spreadsheet

This conversion nearly always exists for the same reason: someone technical has data as JSON, and someone else needs to open it in Excel or Google Sheets. Analysts filter and pivot in spreadsheets, finance teams reconcile in them, and clients expect them. Converting is faster than building a report, and the result goes straight into the tool the other person already knows.

The problem with nesting

JSON can nest objects and arrays to any depth. CSV cannot; it is a flat grid. So converting means flattening, which either turns a nested path into a compound column name or drops the structure entirely. If your JSON contains an array of items inside each record, there is no clean single-table representation of it, and the honest answer is that some data will not survive the trip.

Practical notes

• The conversion works best on a flat array of objects with consistent keys.
• Records missing a key produce empty cells rather than shifted columns.
• Values containing commas or quotes are quoted and escaped, which is correct even though it looks odd in a text editor.
• Check the encoding when opening in Excel, since UTF-8 without a byte order mark can display accented characters wrongly.