paste -d, -s filename | sed ‘s/,/”,”/g’ | sed ‘s/^/”/’ | sed ‘s/$/”/’ Example: file1.txt contains: alpha bravo charlie delta echo paste -d, -s file1.txt | sed ‘s/,/”,”/g’ | sed ‘s/^/”/’ | sed ‘s/$/”/’ > file2.txt file2.txt contains: “alpha”,”bravo”,”charlie”,”delta”,”echo”