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CSV import in Excel with "garbled" characters

You are opening a csv file in Microsoft Excel and are seeing incorrect, or garbled characters, such a  é, ü, Å, etc. 

This could be because the CSV file is UTF-8-encoded. CDD uses UTF-8 because it is the de-facto standard for information exchange in modern applications. However, Excel does not automatically use UTF-8 when opening CSV files.

To resolve this issue, please do the following after exporting a CSV file from CDD:

On a Windows machine:

  • On a Windows computer, click "File > New" in Excel.
  • Click "Data" tab.
  • For older versions of Excel:
    • Click "From Text" option. Select the CSV you file want to import.
    • Excel will display "Text Import Wizard".
    • In step-1 of this wizard:
      • Select "Delimited" radiobutton.
      • In "File origin" field - select "65001 : Unicode (UTF-8)".
    • Click "Next >" button.
    • In step-2 of this wizard:
      • Select "Comma" checkbox.
    • Click "Finish" button.
    • In the dialog window that appears - click "OK" button.
  • For newer Versions of Excel:
    • Click "From Text/CSV" option. Select the CSV you file want to import.
    • In the next box  select:
      • In "File origin" field - select "65001 : Unicode (UTF-8)".
    • Click "Load" button.
  • Excel will display your CSV file - including non-English characters - properly.

On a Mac:

If you are using Excel 2016 or later, then above Method 2 will work also on Mac. For older versions you can select File - Import, and then once you select you CSV you will be able to choose the encoding to use.