Reading the live preview
The live preview is the table at the bottom of Stage 3 that shows the cleaned output as it will appear in your downloaded CSV. This article explains what each part means and how to use the preview to double-check a cleanup before downloading.
What the preview shows
The preview is a 50-row window over your cleaned rows, starting at row 1. The columns shown are exactly the columns that will be in the downloaded CSV, in Shopify's standard column order.
Highlighted cells
Every cell an auto-fix changed gets the same soft green tint. There's no color code to learn: one tint means "CSVwise changed this." Hover the cell to find out which fix did it and what the value was before.
Cells without a tint are unchanged from your source file. If a row has no tinted cells at all, CSVwise didn't need to change anything in it.
The {missing} chip
An empty cell in a column Shopify really needs (Title, Handle, Variant Price) shows a {missing} chip instead of blank space. Hover it for column-specific guidance on what Shopify will do with that row.
One deliberate exception: variant and image rows that repeat a Handle already titled on an earlier row show no {missing} Title chip. They're continuation rows of the same product, not products missing a title. (Handle and Variant Price still show chips on those rows if they're empty.)
Hovering for details
Hover any tinted cell to see which fix fired and what it changed, in the form priceStripCurrency: "$24.99" → "24.99".
Moving through the file
The caption above the table always tells you where you are: "Showing rows 1–50 of 1,247 rows." Three ways to move the window:
- Jump to row. Type a row number and click Go (or press Enter).
- Prev / Next. Page the window 50 rows at a time.
- Click a row number in a problem card. The window moves to that row and scrolls the preview into view.
Only the visible window renders, which is what keeps the preview fast on a 50,000-row file.
The row actions column
Every preview row leads with its source row number (#142) and a Remove button. Removing a row marks it for exclusion from the cleaned CSV, and the button then reads Restore. This is the finest-grained control CSVwise offers.
Toggle off to compare
The preview re-renders instantly when you toggle a fix on or off. To see what a specific fix actually does to your file:
- Find a row in the preview where a cell is tinted for that fix (for example, a reformatted price cell).
- Toggle that fix off.
- The cell goes back to your original value and the tint disappears.
This is the fastest way to see exactly what each fix is doing on your data. No abstract before/after examples needed.
Removed rows
Rows you've marked for removal (see Removing rows from the cleaned CSV) stay in the preview, struck through and dimmed, with their leading button switched to Restore. They're not written to the cleaned CSV.
The caption keeps a running count: "N rows marked for removal are shown with strikethrough and will NOT appear in the download."
What the preview doesn't show
- The column rename pass. Renaming your source column names to Shopify's standard names happens before the preview. The preview always shows Shopify column names.
- AI-repaired values. This is a coming-soon feature. When AI repair lands, repaired values will get their own highlight treatment.
Performance notes
The preview renders in your browser, so very wide CSVs (lots of columns) can feel heavy. CSVwise keeps this manageable by rendering only the 50-row window rather than the whole file. Sample values shown inside problem cards are shortened, but the full value is always preserved in the downloaded file.