Export to CSV gives unformatted output and unexpected characters

Question

I want to export data I collected in a Table to a CSV (or XLSX)-File. However, the output is not very handy, it is not in a column-shape but surrounded by {} and in my more complicated example, I get unexpected numbers such as -6 and a lot of spaces when I try to preview it in Excel. Furthermore, I am unable to import the data in R for further use.

My more or less reproducible example:

(* creating some data *)
fObs = Flatten[Table[{
 a,
 b,
 e,
 d,
 f,
 a,
 b,
 e,
 d,
 f,
 a,
 b,
 e,
 d,
 f,
 z}, {b, {0, .25, .50, 0.75, 2, 5, 
  36}}, {e, {0.0001, .250001, .500001, 0.750001, 1}}, {a, {2, 4.5,
   4, 7.5, 0}}, {d, {0, 3.25, 3.5, .75}}, {f, {0, 2.25, 
  2.5, .75}}, {z, {0, .25, 0.5, .75}}], 5];

Next, I want to convert the data to NumberForm (in order to get rid of fractions like 1/4, which is complicated to convert later on (if there is a better way to get rid of fractions, let me know)

fObsNo = NumberForm[fObs // N, {4, 3}]

Finally, I export

Export[NotebookDirectory[] <> "test.csv", fObsNo]

The output looks like this:

But I expected something like this. I do not see a pattern why it sometimes gives correct output and sometimes doesn't...

Thanks a lot in advance!

Answer 1

Do not Export result of NumberForm, Map it instead:

Export[NotebookDirectory[] <> "test.csv", Map[NumberForm[N@#, {4, 3}] &, fObs, {2}]]