A Visual Studio Code extension for viewing and exporting Qlik Sense and QlikView QVD files. View
data, metadata, schema, lineage and data profiles directly within VS Code. Designed for Qlik
developers, admins and data engineers.
❤️ Support the project
Ctrl-Q QVD Viewer is free and open source, under the MIT licence. If you use it, please consider sponsoring its development: sponsorships pay for maintenance, bug fixes and new features, and keep the project going.
❤️ Sponsor Ptarmigan Labs on GitHub
Other ways to help:
- ⭐ Star the repository: it helps others find the project.
- 💬 Share your feedback in Discussions: tell us how you use it.
- 🐛 Report issues in Issues.
- 🍴 Contribute: pull requests are welcome.
Maintained by Göran Sander and supported by Ptarmigan Labs.
Features
- View QVD Files: Open and view QVD files created by Qlik Sense or QlikView
- Display Metadata: View comprehensive metadata about QVD files including:
- File creation information
- Table creator details
- Total number of records
- Field definitions with types, symbols, and technical details
- Lineage information (if available in the QVD file)
- Data Browsing: Page through every row of a QVD, however large, in a formatted table. The viewer reads one page at a time, wherever it is in the file, so a file of 30 million rows opens as quickly as a small one
- Data Profiling: Analyze value distributions in your QVD fields (detailed documentation)
- Select 1-3 fields for comparison
- View frequency distributions in interactive bar charts
- Statistical Analysis for Numeric Fields (Beta):
- Descriptive statistics (min, max, mean, median, mode, sum, count)
- Spread measures (standard deviation, variance, range, IQR)
- Distribution metrics (quartiles, percentiles, skewness, kurtosis)
- Outlier detection using 1.5 × IQR method
- Histogram visualization for numeric distributions
- Temporal Analysis for Date/Time Fields (Beta):
- Automatic detection of date, timestamp, and time fields
- Time range analysis (earliest, latest, span, missing values)
- Temporal pattern detection (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly)
- Distribution visualizations across different time granularities
- Gap detection and time series continuity analysis
- String Analysis for Text Fields (Beta):
- String length analysis (min, max, average, distribution)
- Pattern detection (email, phone, URL, numeric patterns)
- Character composition analysis (letters, digits, special characters)
- Whitespace and formatting detection (leading/trailing, multiple spaces)
- Empty string and null value analysis
- Data Quality Assessment: A 0-100 quality score per field, with color-coded indicators and recommendations
- See detailed value counts and percentages in sortable tables
- Export profiling results as Qlik .qvs scripts for further analysis
- Automatic warning for large files before loading all data
- Open results as Markdown or Visual Analysis in separate windows
- Note: All analysis features (statistical, temporal, string) are in beta and subject to refinement
- Export Data: Export QVD data to multiple formats:
- Apache Arrow - High-performance columnar format for analytics (Beta)
- Avro - Compact binary format with schema evolution support (Beta)
- CSV - Comma-separated values for universal compatibility
- Excel - Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) with styled headers
- JSON - JavaScript Object Notation with pretty formatting
- Parquet - Apache Parquet for efficient columnar storage
- PostgreSQL - SQL script for PostgreSQL database import (Beta)
- Qlik Sense Inline Script - Qlik load script with inline table (with row limit selection)
- SQLite - Portable database file with SQL query support (Beta)
- XML - Extensible markup language for enterprise systems
- YAML - Human-readable structured data format
- Configurable Page Size: Choose how many rows a page shows (default: 100, range: 10-1,000), in Settings or below the table
- About Panel: Version information, a feature overview, help links and links to the other Ptarmigan Labs tools
- Help from Inside VS Code: A ❓ Help button in the viewer, and commands that open this guide, ask a question or report a bug. See Getting Help
- Extension Logs: An output channel that shows what the extension did, for troubleshooting
- Read-Only Access: Safe viewing without modifying original QVD files
Part of the Ptarmigan Labs tools
Ctrl-Q QVD Viewer is one of a set of free, open source tools for Qlik Sense and QlikView developers and admins, all MIT licensed and all sponsored by Ptarmigan Labs. See them all at ptarmiganlabs.com/products.
The Butler family
- Butler: Reload failure alerts, task scheduling, a key-value store and more for Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows
- Butler SOS: Real-time operational metrics for client-managed Qlik Sense, for dashboards in Grafana and elsewhere
- Butler Sheet Icons: Automatic sheet icons (thumbnails) for client-managed Qlik Sense and Qlik Cloud
Ctrl-Q
- Ctrl-Q: Automate Qlik Sense Enterprise on Windows admin tasks from the command line
- Ctrl-Q QVD Viewer (this extension): View and export QVD files in VS Code
This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗
