Excel not recognize automatically generated CSV files using utf-8 encoding

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I generate utf-8 encoding output in Julia by using DelimitedFiles package. I would like students to be able to read the generated files automatically in EXCEL by using utf-8 encoding without going into the pain in Excel to read the data tab (1) Get Data from File, (2) change encodement, (3) save file etc…

Therefore is there a way to tell EXCEL that the generated file is a utf-8 encoding and not a Western European encoding?

Many thanks for any help you may provide,

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UTF-8 is not really used in the Windows universe. You my try to encode your data while writing to UTF-16LE and see whether Excel reads that without trouble. Additionally you may have to insert the BOM sequence at the very beginning of the file.

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Thanks Wolfgang,

So how to write a UTF-16LE output in Julia?

How to insert the BOM sequence at the very beginning of the file?

Thanks for all your help,
Joseph

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Did you try googling “utf8 excel csv?” You would have found this:

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(UTF-8 is the most common encoding on the web, so plenty of Windows software can handle it. You just need to tell it the encoding.)

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Hi Steven,

Thanks for your answer. We know how to read UTF-8 encoding in Excel but it is a real pain. I was just wandering if there is a way to tell EXCEL before opening the file that the file is in UTF-8 encoding?

Thanks,
Joseph

7

According to this post, writing a BOM at the beginning of the file will cause Excel 2007 or later to automatically treat a CSV file as UTF8:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/155097/microsoft-excel-mangles-diacritics-in-csv-files

In Julia, do write(file, [0xef,0xbb,0xbf]) at the beginning of the file, before you write the CSV data.

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8

Maybe just creat .xlsx with XLSX.jl would be easier soultion?

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Thanks Steven for solving the problem. Your solution works remarkably well and when I open now .csv in EXCEL one can see the greek symbols in the header :grinning: Below is an example how I use it.

		import DelimitedFiles
			open(path.Table_θΨK, "w") do io
				DelimitedFiles.write(io, [0xef,0xbb,0xbf]) 
				DelimitedFiles.writedlm(io,[FieldName_String] , ",",) # Header
				DelimitedFiles.writedlm(io, [Id_Select Matrix], ",")
			end
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Hi Yong thanks for providing an alternative solution.

I believe that writing in .xlsx is indeed an alternative solution for small files but for larger files I believe that writing in .csv is faster and takes less memory, STEVENGJ :point_up_2: provides a good solution :smile:.