Mojibuster

Excel shows special characters wrong – here’s the fix

You open a CSV in Excel and see é instead of é? That’s almost always the encoding. There are two fixes: repair the file or import it the right way.

Works with text and these files:

  • CSV
  • TXT
  • JSON
  • XML
  • SRT
  • VTT
  • TSV
  • MD
  • HTML
  • SQL
  • LOG

For example Excel exports, database dumps, subtitles or website code.

Repair

  1. Drop a file or paste text
  2. It gets repaired automatically
  3. Copy or download
or simply drag a file here

  • No upload. Your files are repaired right in your browser and never leave your device.

  • Servers in the EU. Mojibuster runs on a server in Finland (EU), so the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies. Read the GDPR (EUR-Lex)

Why does Excel show é instead of é?

When you double-click a CSV, Excel reads it with your system’s character table – on most Western Windows systems that’s Windows-1252. If the file is UTF-8 without a BOM, an invisible marker at the start of the file, accented letters are shown incorrectly.

Fix 1: Repair the file and save it with a BOM

  1. Drag the CSV file into the box above.
  2. Keep Save with BOM switched on – it’s preselected for CSV files.
  3. Download the repaired file and open it in Excel with a double-click.

If you already saved the file in Excel while the characters were shown wrong, the error is now part of the file itself. Mojibuster repairs that as well.

Fix 2: Import the CSV into Excel correctly

  1. Open a blank workbook and choose Data → From Text/CSV.
  2. Select the CSV file.
  3. Set File Origin to 65001: Unicode (UTF-8).
  4. Check the preview and click Load.

When saving from Excel

In “Save As”, choose CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited). The plain “CSV (Comma delimited)” format saves in Windows-1252 – other programs then often show accented letters as �.

Frequently asked questions

Why does this only happen with some CSV files?

It depends on how the file was saved. Excel opens Windows-1252 files and UTF-8 files with a BOM correctly, but not UTF-8 without a BOM.

I already saved the broken file – is it lost?

No. The broken characters are now stored as é in the file, and é can be restored from that. Just drop the file into Mojibuster.

Does this apply to Excel for Mac too?

Yes. Excel for Mac often doesn’t recognize UTF-8 CSV files without a BOM either. So save the repaired file with a BOM.

What is a BOM?

The byte order mark is three invisible bytes at the start of a file. They tell programs like Excel: this file is UTF-8.

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