Convert it. We forget it. - Based in Germany

Contact
Wandlix

Convert the character encoding of a text file

Fix broken umlauts: convert a text, CSV or XML file between Windows-1252, ISO-8859, UTF-8 and UTF-16. The source character set is detected for you.

Drop your files here

or choose files from your device

Up to 20 files, 20 MB in total. Accepted: any file type.

Windows-1252 to UTF-8 and other text encodings

Almost everyone has seen it: a CSV file or a text file opens with question marks, boxes or strange pairs of characters where the umlauts should be. The cause is nearly always a mismatch between the character set used to save the file and the one used to open it. This page converts Windows-1252 to UTF-8 and back, and handles the other common character sets as well. Upload the file, choose the target and download the corrected file.

The usual job is Windows-1252 to UTF-8, because older Windows programs, accounting software and many exports still write Windows-1252, while web services, databases and modern editors expect UTF-8. The reverse also exists: some old systems only read Windows-1252 or ISO-8859-1. For Central and Eastern Europe, Windows-1250 and ISO-8859-2 are available, ISO-8859-15 covers the euro sign in the Latin-9 set, and UTF-16 files can be read and written too.

You do not have to know the source. The tool looks for a byte order mark, checks whether the content is valid UTF-8 and otherwise assumes Windows-1252, and it tells you what it found. If a character does not exist in the target set, it is replaced by a question mark and counted, so you see exactly what happened. Converting Windows-1252 to UTF-8 never loses a character. You can also unify the line endings and add a byte order mark so that Excel shows umlauts correctly.

Everything runs on our own servers in Germany. The text is held in memory only, never logged and deleted after the download, at the latest after an hour. Whether you convert Windows-1252 to UTF-8 once or in a script through the API, the files stay with us only for the moment of the conversion.

How it works

  1. Add your text files

    Drop up to 20 text, CSV, XML or log files onto the page or choose them from your device.

  2. Choose the character set

    Leave the source on automatic or pick it yourself, then choose the target, for example UTF-8 or Windows-1252.

  3. Download the result

    You get each file back with the new character set. We tell you what was detected and whether any characters had to be replaced.

Questions and answers

Why do umlauts show up as strange characters?

The program that opens the file assumes a different character set than the one used to save it. Convert the file to the set your program expects, usually UTF-8, and the characters appear correctly.

How is the source character set detected?

A byte order mark decides first. Without one, a file that is valid UTF-8 is treated as UTF-8, a file with many zero bytes as UTF-16, and everything else as Windows-1252. If this is wrong, pick the source yourself.

What happens to characters that the target set does not have?

They are replaced by a question mark and counted. After the conversion you see how many were replaced. Converting to UTF-8 never loses characters.

What is the difference between ISO-8859-1 and Windows-1252?

They agree for letters and umlauts. Windows-1252 uses the range 128 to 159 for characters such as the euro sign and typographic quotes, where ISO-8859-1 has control codes. ISO-8859-15 adds the euro sign in a different place.

Can I change the line endings as well?

Yes. Keep them, or convert to Unix style (LF) or Windows style (CRLF).

How do I open a CSV file with umlauts correctly in Excel?

Convert the file to UTF-8 with BOM. Excel then recognises the character set and shows umlauts and the euro sign correctly.