It's not that simple as choose CSV. MS Excel offers a few different CSV formats, which are available in the Save As Type drop down menu when you choose Save As. The different CSV formats are:
Text (Tab delimited) This creates a text document with your cells separated by tabs.
Formatted Text (space delimited) This uses space to separate cell data.
CSV (Comma delimited) This is an actual CSV file extension and thusly separates your data with actual commas.
CSV (Macintosh) This is for those few Apple users out there. Uses Apples CR standard.
CSV (MS-DOS) This was used for Pre-Windows PCs.
On the flip side, viewing a CSV file in Excel is just as simple. Open your CSV file with Excel, it'll have everything in one column but on multiple lines. Start by going to the "Data" tab, then select "Text to Columns". It'll ask a few things about the data before separating it into columns. This may be the trick you need to make that file you made in note-pad readable.
You may want/need to try each of these to see how they behave when importing the delimited file into your mail clients contacts. You may also have to rearrange the columns to import properly with the client as well.
Good luck and Enjoy!