When saving as a csv, with all cells selected and formatted as text, and choosing file format options on save to quote all text cells, empty cells are not quoted. For example, five cells in a row "","two","","","5" would be saved ,"two",,,"5"
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Sample is simple. For example, without quotes: a,,c, ,e With Quotes: "a",,"c"," ","e" Meaning that if empty, no need for quotes. If space, there's quote. MSO does the same: a;;c;;e I'll close as NotABug. If you can explain why this would be wrong and in what situation empty quotes are need, please set back Unconfirmed.
The example in question is an existing application is set up to receive a file in the form "","two","","","5" which is generated by a second application. In this instance I am attempting a manual intervention to fix and error in the data contents of the generated csv. But when I open and resave the document, exploring all possible options, it resaves it. ,"2",,,"5" rather than "","2","","","5" (the actual file is 1000s of lines long and very complex) So either this is a functionality bug, where there software is attempting to quote all cell values and failing (nothing is a possible cell value), or a UI problem, where the save options dialogue is saying it's an option to quote all cell values, when in fact it will only quote cell values that are not null.
All cells sounds like "" to me. Means OTOH to bloat the file with pointless quotes, which is not much of a problem today.
Saving empty cells in CSV as unquoted empty fields is correct. Though saving them quoted (with no further content) is equally correct. A software relying on empty fields being quoted is broken. See http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180 and maybe http://www.creativyst.com/Doc/Articles/CSV/CSV01.htm Btw, the options dialog does not offer to "quote all cell values", but "Quote all text cells". Which empty cells are not.