Under Structure Standards: Spreadsheets A spreadsheet file similarly contains data in rows and columns: columns need not be named, and a column can contain data of several different types and have empty cells. One common format for keeping data with these characteristics is the CSV file. Under Relational Data: Spreadsheets A convention is sometimes used in spreadsheets and CSV files that one row (the header row) contains the names of the columns, and the cells beneath it contain the values. When a spreadsheet or CSV file has consistently-typed columns (so that it is like a relational database table) the ISO/IEC 11179 standard could apply to its semantics.