Is it possible to save an Excel sheet as a different encoding, such as UTF-8 ?

In the Save as window (Office button > Save as), there is a Tools button at the bottom. Click it and go to Web Options. On the Encoding tab you can pick Unicode (UTF-8) from the 'Save this document as' drop-down menu.

Alternatively, you can upload the file to Google Docs and redownload as CSV with UTF-8 formatting.

http://support.practitest.com/customer/portal/articles/177245-creating-a-valid-utf-8-csv-file-for-importing

There is also an addin, which I haven't tested myself, that can save Unicode CSV files.

http://jaimonmathew.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/excel\_addin\_to\_work\_with\_unicode\_csv/

Hi Sid,

Thank you for choosing Microsoft Community. I have a couple of questions to determine the behavior and cause of this issue.

1. In which file format type (*.xls, *.xlsx etc) are you saving the Excel file?
2. How does the saved Excel file show when you open it and view?

Check if the file which is imported to Excel sheet consists of special characters and Non-English characters?

Provide us more information so that we can assist you better.

Thank You.

Excel doesn't seem to support UTF-8 .csv very well. If the Save as option doesn't work, I suggest you look for an addin.

As a short term workaround:

• Save as Unicode .txt. This will use tabs instead of commas/semicolons as separation, but supports UTF-8
• Open the file in Notepad and copy a tab
• Go to Edit > Replace and use the copied tab to replace them all with commas or semicolons, depending on your system settings
• Save in UTF-8 encoding as .csv

Thanks JasperP,

I tried your first "Save as" option. (Wow I didn't realize this option was so hidden!!)

But when I reloaded it the UTF-8 characters were replaced by "?"

Doesn't Excel offers an option in the Menu bar to choose the encoding?

I'm saving it in csv format.

The imported file contains hebrew characters in UTF-8 encoding.

Thanks