When exporting data to CSV and viewing the data in excel, rarely you may see the following, which appears to be corrupted data in the export:

In the centre of the data shown here, you can see that the data appears to be corrupted and has overflowed into several cells.

This is NOT a data corruption issue, but an Excel limitation when viewing files in CSV format and may occur when your system includes very large, or very detailed polygons such as grass areas, hardstanding, waterbodies, tree groups or very complex linear assets such as long drainage channels.

Excel has a limitation of just over 32,000 characters per cell when viewing CSV files. In this case is the polygon has so many points defining it, that it is larger than this 32,000 character limit. As Excel is unable to contain the entire value into a single cell, once the limit is reached any further characters are moved into the next cell. When it then reaches another comma in the data it then carries on overflowing into subsequent cells.

Try the following to load the data into Excel in another format:

Open Excel and create a new blank worksheet or workbook.

Click the Data tab in the top ribbon menu.

Click From Text/CSV.

Browse to and select the CSV file exported from the Kaarbontech System, and then click Import.

In the confirmation window that appears, click Load.

As the data is now loaded in XLSX format rather than CSV, Excel is now capable of displaying much more data in a single cell, and so the ‘corruption’ is no longer present.

This is a rare occurrence and only affects exceptionally large or detailed polygon or line type assets.