=== column === Using a great command line toot ''column'', it is easy to view the content of tab/comma separated files in a readable format. Format CSV ',' as tabular output column -t -s,' < your_file.csv Format TSV : column -ts $'\t' < your_file.tsv Pipe the output to ''less'' column -ts $'\t' < your_file | less Put that in a script, for example ''~/bin/tsvview'' #!/bin/bash set -o errexit function show_usage { cat < Make an alias alias tv='tsvview' or a function function tsv { column -ts $'\t' < "$1" | less -#.3 -N -S }