Stackoverflow answer: Export to CSV using jQuery and html

custom.css

a.export, a.export:visited {
    text-decoration: none;
    color:#000;
    background-color:#ddd;
    border: 1px solid #ccc;
    padding:8px;
}

index.html

<a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16078544/export-to-csv-using-jquery-and-html" target="_blank">Export to CSV using jQuery and html</a>

<hr>
<div id="dvData">
    <table>
        <tr>
            <th>Column One</th>
            <th>Column Two</th>
            <th>Column Three</th>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>row1 Col1</td>
            <td>row1 Col2</td>
            <td>row1 Col3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>row2 Col1</td>
            <td>row2 Col2</td>
            <td>row2 Col3</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>row3 Col1</td>
            <td>row3 Col2</td>
            <td>row3 Col3</td>
        </tr>
    </table>
</div>
<br/>
<a href="#" class="export">Export Table data into Excel</a>

<br/>
<br/>
<!-- Notes below -->
<hr>
<p>Notes</p>
<ul>
    <li style="font-weight:bold;">You can style your link to look like a button. I'll leave this effort to you</li>
    <li>For issues and support in IE, see this: <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7405345/data-uri-scheme-and-internet-explorer-9-errors">http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7405345/data-uri-scheme-and-internet-explorer-9-errors</a>

    </li>
    <li>About the &quot;download&quot; attribute, see this: <a href="http://updates.html5rocks.com/2011/08/Downloading-resources-in-HTML5-a-download" target="_blank">http://updates.html5rocks.com/2011/08/Downloading-resources-in-HTML5-a-download</a>. In case you need to detect, see this: <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12112844/how-to-detect-support-for-the-html5-download-attribute" target="_blank">http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12112844/how-to-detect-support-for-the-html5-download-attribute</a> and this <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=676619" target="_blank">https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=676619</a>

    </li>
    <li>Safari does not seem to have implemented the download attribute yet, but renaming the downloaded file and opening it confirms the CSV file is intact</li>
</ul>

script.js

$(document).ready(function () {

    function exportTableToCSV($table, filename) {

        var $rows = $table.find('tr:has(td)'),

            // Temporary delimiter characters unlikely to be typed by keyboard
            // This is to avoid accidentally splitting the actual contents
            tmpColDelim = String.fromCharCode(11), // vertical tab character
            tmpRowDelim = String.fromCharCode(0), // null character

            // actual delimiter characters for CSV format
            colDelim = '","',
            rowDelim = '"\r\n"',

            // Grab text from table into CSV formatted string
            csv = '"' + $rows.map(function (i, row) {
                var $row = $(row),
                    $cols = $row.find('td');

                return $cols.map(function (j, col) {
                    var $col = $(col),
                        text = $col.text();

                    return text.replace('"', '""'); // escape double quotes

                }).get().join(tmpColDelim);

            }).get().join(tmpRowDelim)
                .split(tmpRowDelim).join(rowDelim)
                .split(tmpColDelim).join(colDelim) + '"',

            // Data URI
            csvData = 'data:application/csv;charset=utf-8,' + encodeURIComponent(csv);

        $(this)
            .attr({
            'download': filename,
                'href': csvData,
                'target': '_blank'
        });
    }

    // This must be a hyperlink
    $(".export").on('click', function (event) {
        // CSV
        exportTableToCSV.apply(this, [$('#dvData>table'), 'export.csv']);
        
        // IF CSV, don't do event.preventDefault() or return false
        // We actually need this to be a typical hyperlink
    });
});