# Output UTF-8 encoded CSVs

**URL:** <https://community.riskscape.org.nz/t/output-utf-8-encoded-csvs/217>\
**Category:** Community\
**Created:** [8 May 2025 01:14 UTC](https://community.riskscape.org.nz/t/output-utf-8-encoded-csvs/217 "2025-05-08T01:14:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![JPowell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@JPowell](https://community.riskscape.org.nz/u/JPowell)\
**Post date:** [8 May 2025 01:14 UTC](https://community.riskscape.org.nz/t/output-utf-8-encoded-csvs/217/1 "2025-05-08T01:14:54Z")

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When I open my output csvs in excel the special characters (ā,ē,ī,ō,ū, etc.) do not display correctly. They do work if I open it in notepad++ and then copy and paste into excel and save as a UTF-8 csv.  
Is there a way to get the riskscape output to work without the extra step?

 ![image](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/uploads/riskscape/original/1X/b52e42463629f45141145ebe635e48a1f31cdbc9.png)

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**Author:** ![freddym](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/59ef9b/32.png) [@freddym](https://community.riskscape.org.nz/u/freddym)\
**Post date:** [9 May 2025 00:01 UTC](https://community.riskscape.org.nz/t/output-utf-8-encoded-csvs/217/2 "2025-05-09T00:01:02Z")

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Hi John,

It looks like Excel only checks for a [BOM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_order_mark) to figure out a file’s encoding. We don’t currently include a BOM, because it’s not a required (or even recommended) part of the CSV standard. We’ll look at adding it to CSV outputs so Excel will open them nicely.

In the meantime, you should try importing your CSV into Excel using `Data` → `From Text/CSV` which seems to detect the encoding better (and will allow you to change it if not).

Hope that helps,  
Freddy

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![JPowell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@JPowell](https://community.riskscape.org.nz/u/JPowell)\
**Post date:** [15 May 2025 02:22 UTC](https://community.riskscape.org.nz/t/output-utf-8-encoded-csvs/217/3 "2025-05-15T02:22:26Z")

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Thanks Freddy,

Would be great to have this as an option in RiskScape. In the meantime I have found that

```auto
sed '1s/^/\xef\xbb\xbf/' input.csv > input-UTF8.csv

```

works well and can be included in my work flow.

Cheers  
John