QVD Reader

About QVD Files

A QVD (QlikView Data) file stores exactly one data table and consists of three components:

XML Header: A well-formed UTF-8 encoded XML section that defines the table structure, field metadata, and layout information.
Symbol Tables: Stored in a byte-stuffed format to map field values efficiently.
Actual Data: Stored in a bit-stuffed format representing the table content.

The QVD format mirrors the in-memory representation of a QlikView table. Because of this, optimized QVD loads are extremely fast—data is read directly from disk into RAM with no additional transformation needed.

Properties

Tip: To change Reader properties double click on it.

Avoiding Problems with Numeric Fields

In QVD files, numeric fields may be interpreted as:

Plain numbers
Dates or timestamps

The system attempts to automatically detect the data type, but this can sometimes lead to incorrect interpretations.

To prevent this, use the “Ignore format” option to force values to be treated strictly as numeric, avoiding misclassification as dates or timestamps.