CSV Files: Issue with Non-English Characters

Question

When I translate a CSV file from English into a language with non-English characters, the exported translation is not displayed properly on Excel. Specifically, the non-English characters are not displayed correctly. Any ideas on how to solve this?

Paul · Accepted Answer

Unknown said: Could you please confirm the steps in order to convert the encoding of a source CSV file on FEC? 
 I created a short video to explain to you how to do this... hope it helps:

Paul · Answer

Unknown said: Your video actually solved another problem that I thought was unsolvable. If I understand correctly, with the options you applied at the latter half of the video, one can translate all cells (including all columns) of a CSV file. I thought that CSVs are translated only as bilingual files on Trados, as it gives you the option to choose only one column as the source and one as the target. 
 Indeed... that's why I shared what I did. I hadn't thought about this before but it does seem a little short sighted not to support the ability to handle CSV files where the entire content needs translating... unless I'm also missing something!

Paul · Answer

You probably need to make sure that you either ensure the encoding of the source file is UTF-8 (for example) or set the encoding of the CSV when you save the target file here: 
 
 If you have a lot of these files it makes sense the change the encoding of the source first. A great application for this is here: 
 https://appstore.sdl.com/language/app/fec-file-encoding-converter/788/

Daniel Hug · Answer

It's a matter of how the characters are encoded, as Paul wrote. If you double-click on the CSV file, Excel assumes it's ANSI encoded, and will interpret the characters accordingly, which will lead to these results if your file is UTF-8: 
 
 If you open the file in Excel using the "Get external data from text" in the Data tab on the ribbon, you can select which encoding you want Excel to assume: 
 
 This way you can get a UTF-8 encoded CSV file to import correctly into Excel. 
 Daniel

Evzen Polenka · Answer

Your Greek file is saved in ISO 8859-7 encoding. So you need to treat it correspondingly... 
 
 either enforce this encoding when opening the file in Excel (e.g. by changing the extension from CSV to TXT to stop Excel from trying to be an I-know-what-is-best-for-you smartass and give the control back to the user's hands) in this case you MUST open the file in Excel using File / Open, NOT by doubleclicking the file in Explorer!!! only this way will Excel allow you to select the file encoding... 
 or open the file using this encoding in your favorite text editor and then "Save As" in UTF-8 and only then open the re-saved CSV in Excel

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CSV Files: Issue with Non-English Characters

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