How to Fix Garbled Text in CSV Files: Complete Guide

Have you ever opened a CSV file only to find text that looks like "é" instead of "é" or "’" instead of an apostrophe? This is a common encoding issue that happens when working with CSV files, especially when dealing with special characters or data from different sources.

What Causes Garbled Text in CSV Files?

Garbled text (also known as mojibake) typically occurs when:

• A file is saved with one encoding (e.g., UTF-8) but opened with another (e.g., ASCII)
• Special characters or accents are not properly encoded
• Data is copied between programs that use different default encodings
• Files are exported from systems with incompatible character sets

Common Scenarios Where Text Gets Garbled

1. Exporting data from Excel to CSV
2. Downloading CSV files from web applications
3. Combining data from multiple sources
4. Working with international characters

How to Fix Garbled Text in Your CSV

Here's a step-by-step guide to fixing encoding issues:

Method 1: Using Our Online CSV Encoding Fixer

1. Upload your CSV file with garbled text
2. Select the columns containing problematic text
3. Click "Fix Encoding"
4. Preview the results
5. Download your fixed CSV file

Method 2: Manual Fixes in Excel

If you prefer to fix the issue manually:

1. Open Excel
2. Go to Data → From Text/CSV
3. Select your file
4. In the import wizard, change the File Origin to "65001: Unicode (UTF-8)"
5. Load the data and save as a new CSV

Preventing Encoding Issues

To avoid encoding problems in the future:

• Always save CSV files in UTF-8 encoding
• Use text editors that support UTF-8 (like Notepad++)
• When possible, specify the encoding when importing/exporting data
• Test with sample data containing special characters before processing large files