Question

EXCEL 2007 imports badly CSV files containing UTF-8 with BOM !

Asked by: BigSchmuh

Dear experts,

We are using MS Office 2007.
We have some CSV files that contains UTF-8 chars with the correct BOM (Using a binary editor, I checked that the file starts with "EF BB BF").

Some of us can open those files with EXCEL detecting correctly the UTF-8 encoding...but most of us get some inappropriate ANSI display for specific UTF-8 chars in those files !

Some of those who can open correctly the files has an EXCEL 2007, some has SP2.
Up to now, I did not found a SP1 release able to open those UTF-8 with BOM CSV files correctly.

I would reward anybody who links me to a MS official topic about this specific UTF-8 "bug"

Thanks for reading anyway ;-)

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Asked On
2009-09-09 at 09:12:22ID24718660
Tags

EXCEL 2007 BOM UTF-8 IMPORT CSV

Topics

Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet Software

,

Microsoft Office Suite

,

Spreadsheet Software

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Answers

 

by: JOrzechPosted on 2009-09-10 at 09:15:39ID: 25301691

I can't point you to any MS KB but I did find a few tidbits of information -  perhaps it will help....

This looks promising: http://www.jaanuskase.com/en/2006/01/csv_encoding_vs_excel.html


Also
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Microsoft/Development/MS_Access/Q_24388193.html#a24325383

also

http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread71956.html#

"This is problem with Excel NOT the data format that is exported. Here are the steps

1- download the exported CSV/XLS file from your website.
2- Open Excel 2007
3- Open a new file
4- Click the Data Menu option
5- Click "From Text" button
6- Select the file you downloaded
7- Make sure "Delimited" is selected and Press Next
8- Check the delimiter characters that you know are in your file like Comma or Tab or whatever is in your case. You can select more than one
9- Proceed to Next Step and Finich
10- Your excel file will be ready with all you data displayed correctly"

 

by: BigSchmuhPosted on 2009-09-11 at 01:29:34ID: 25307524

Your links are related to case where the CSV file does NOT have a BOM.
I can't blame Excel for not being able to detect an UTF-8 file without a BOM.

The attached file HAS an UTF-8 BOM.
==> I am trying to understand which  EXCEL 2007 releases import correctly a CSV containing UTF-8 text and its BOM.

 

by: JOrzechPosted on 2009-09-11 at 06:18:10ID: 25309054

Oh sorry then - I misunderstood.

 

by: BigSchmuhPosted on 2009-09-18 at 08:51:04ID: 25367234

Looks like this was a regression bug in office SP1.
Installing office SP2 solved this problem.

 

by: JOrzechPosted on 2009-09-18 at 09:02:14ID: 25367339

Well that is good news!  Glad it's resolved.

Joanne Orzech
MS Word MVP

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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