Tablizer

Convert XML to TSV Online

Paste an XML table below, edit it if you need to, and get TSV back. The conversion runs in your browser, so nothing is uploaded, there is no size limit and there is no signup.

From

The only part of this site that uses a server. The address is sent to it so the page can be fetched, because a browser is not allowed to fetch someone else's page itself. Your own files are never involved.

Nothing here is uploaded. The parsing happens on this page.
Edit
Paste or upload something above and it will appear here.
ToDataMarkupDocumentsCodeSchemasImages

The output will appear here once there is a table to convert.

What XML is

XML marks up data with nested named tags and optional attributes. It is verbose, strict about being well-formed, and can carry a schema that says what shape a document must have.

Enterprise integrations, government data feeds, RSS, SOAP services and older document formats.

What TSV is

TSV is CSV with tabs instead of commas. Because tabs almost never appear inside a value, quoting is rarely needed and the files are easier to read by eye.

Bioinformatics, log processing, and anyone who has copied a block of cells out of a spreadsheet: the clipboard format is TSV.

What changes when you convert XML to TSV

The first repeating element is treated as the rows. Attributes are read alongside child elements and prefixed so they do not collide with a same-named tag. Nesting one level deep becomes dotted column names; deeper structures are kept as text.

Pick TSV over CSV when your values contain commas. Pasting the result straight into a spreadsheet fills the cells correctly with no import dialog.

What carries over from XML to TSV

XML records 3 things about a table that TSV has no way to hold.

An empty cell and a missing one are the same thing in TSV, so a null and an empty string in the XML both come out blank and can no longer be told apart.

XML can hold a value that is itself a list or an object. TSV has only flat cells, so nested values are flattened into one cell rather than being spread across columns.

A line break inside a cell ends the row in TSV, so line breaks are replaced rather than carried through.

The keys stop being repeated: TSV writes the column names once at the top, so the same table takes noticeably less space.

The identifier 007 comes out of the TSV as 007. Reading it as a number would have made it 7, and an id that changes value is worse than one that stays text.

The role "Analyst, data" survives with its comma, in one cell rather than split across two. That is the first thing to check in any converted table, and the usual place a TSV file goes wrong.

The quotes around Jonah "Jo" Pryce are doubled, which is how the delimited formats escape a quote in the TSV.

A worked example

Three rows of staff data, with an identifier that has a leading zero, a value containing a comma, a value containing quotes and one blank cell. Those are the four places formats disagree, so they are the four places to look.

XML in
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<staff>
  <person id="007">
    <name>Halima Yusuf</name>
    <role>Analyst, data</role>
    <started>2024-03-15</started>
    <hours>38.5</hours>
  </person>
  <person id="012">
    <name>Jonah "Jo" Pryce</name>
    <role>Engineer</role>
    <started>2025-11-02</started>
    <hours></hours>
  </person>
  <person id="104">
    <name>Wei Chen</name>
    <role>Manager</role>
    <started>2023-06-30</started>
    <hours>40</hours>
  </person>
</staff>
TSV out
id	name	role	started	hours
007	Halima Yusuf	Analyst, data	2024-03-15	38.5
012	"Jonah ""Jo"" Pryce"	Engineer	2025-11-02	
104	Wei Chen	Manager	2023-06-30	40

Questions

How do I convert XML to TSV?

Paste your XML into the box above or drop the file onto it. Check the table in the grid, then copy or download the TSV from the output panel. It takes one step and the data never leaves your browser.

What happens to nested values?

TSV has no nested cell, so a list or object inside a XML value is flattened into a single cell rather than expanded into extra columns. Split it before converting if the parts need to be separate.

One of my cells has a line break in it - what happens?

A line break would end the row in TSV, so it is replaced instead of carried through. The rest of the cell stays where it belongs.

Is there a limit on file size?

No. The work happens on your own machine, so the limit is your machine's memory rather than an upload cap. A file with tens of thousands of rows converts in a second or two.

Is my data uploaded anywhere?

No. The parsing and generating are done by JavaScript running on this page. You can watch the network tab while you convert and see that nothing is sent.

Related conversions