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Exports-Opening CSV Files in Excel When Special Characters Display Incorrectly

When opening a CSV file exported from EnrollNow in Microsoft Excel, special characters or characters from other languages may not always display correctly. This can occur when Excel opens the CSV using a different character encoding. Importing the CSV using UTF-8 encoding should allow the characters to display correctly without requiring manual corrections.

Why Special Characters May Display Incorrectly

If a CSV file is opened by double-clicking the file, Excel may automatically select a character encoding. When the selected encoding does not match the encoding used by the CSV file, accented characters, symbols, or characters from other languages may appear incorrectly.

Examples may include characters such as:

  • é
  • ñ
  • ü
  • ç

To prevent this, import the CSV file into Excel and select UTF-8 as the file encoding.

Importing a CSV File Using UTF-8 in Excel

Excel for Mac

  1. Open Microsoft Excel. Do not double-click the CSV file to open it directly.
  2. Create a Blank Workbook.
  3. Select the Data tab.
  4. Select From Text/CSV. Depending on your version of Excel, this option may appear under Get Data > From File > From Text/CSV.
  5. Locate and select the CSV file you want to open.
  6. Select Import or Get Data.
  7. Excel will display a preview of the CSV data.
  8. Locate the File Origin or Encoding option.
  9. Select 65001: Unicode (UTF-8) or UTF-8.
  10. Confirm that the Delimiter is set to Comma if Excel does not automatically detect it.
  11. Review the preview to confirm that the special characters are displaying correctly.
  12. Select Load or Import to open the data in Excel.

If You See a File Origin Option

If Excel displays a File Origin field during the import process, select:

65001: Unicode (UTF-8)

Review the data preview before completing the import to confirm that the special characters appear correctly.

NOTE:  

Avoid opening the CSV file by double-clicking it when the file contains special characters or characters from other languages. Opening the file directly may cause Excel to automatically select an encoding that does not display those characters correctly.

Instead, open Excel first and use the From Text/CSV import option with UTF-8 encoding.

Using this method should allow special characters in data exported from EnrollNow to display correctly and reduce the need for manual corrections in Excel.