Asian Language data corruption between Salesforce.com and MS Excel

Question

Hi My company is heavy user of Salesforce.com. The platform provides report page, and each report has function to subscription with attachment. (attachment contains the details of the report, for example every line details) .

Problem is Salesforce Report provides full detailed data in local language setting (Korean) but, the file does not support Korean lanaguage and showing ??? instead of correct Korean.

Excel itself supports Korean and Window setting language has Korean too.

Below is the reply I got from the Salesforce.

------------Quotes-----------------

I would like to confirm if you have rceive my previous email and case comment with details below:Please be informed that when we use details only as export view, it exports the report "not exactly the same as it appears in Salesforce", it is working as expected as this export view is intended for doing further calculations in a spreadsheet or for some changes.

With regards with the Korean characters, based on my investigation, I can see that the report details in Salesforce is showing the expected and correct characters however, upon opening the exported report to Excel, it is giving incorrect values or characters. As per this discussion below, it is advised to click on "Printable View" instead of "Export Details" button on Report when dealing with Asian characters such as Korean. However, since we are using the report subscription, this is not an option.

How do I get Korean characters to display in reports that I export to excel

https://trailhead.salesforce.com/trailblazer-community/feed/0D54S00000A7WYDSA3

Please be informed that this issue is coming from Excel and not from Salesforce as the report has the correct values/characters in Salesforce UI. More often, it also depends on the Excel version the user is using.

Please check this article below for your guide on how to correct this incorrect characters in Excel :Create UTF-8 CSV files from an Excel spreadsheet containing Asian Characters

https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=000324657&type=1

Moreover, please check on this discussion for additional information.

How to use data loader to upload Korean characters?

https://trailhead.salesforce.com/trailblazer-community/feed/0D54S00000A84iaSABPlease

Let me know if further assistance is needed from our end and we are happy to help.

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It clearly said that Salesforce sent correct data but there's some problem in Excel to present the Asian characteristic.

Could you pls check if you receive any similar issues between Salesforce report and Asian Characters? How should we solve this ?

Thank you

Answer 1

Hi Tin

Thank you for your answer.

Excel does support Korean, and the language is installed already. Thus, i have no idea what the SFDC team meant.

SFDC data was sent in Korean language. and my Excel already prepared for it.

I can see that the report details in Salesforce is showing the expected and correct characters however, upon opening the exported report to Excel, it is giving incorrect values or characters.

The file is .csv format from the SFDC. However, when we receive it by mail (since this is a subscription function), Korean characters are still showing as ?????.

Also, unfortunately, Amending the file after receiving in mail in UTF-8 is not an option... Because the reason of using subscription is user-friendly data displaying..

Perhaps, could you pls check the root cause with the SFDC ? I can give you name of the person in charge in SFDC for this matter.

Thank you

Answer 2

Hi MKKKK123：

Thank you for the detailed information and we apologize for the inconvenience this issue has caused you.

In my tests, Excel does support the Korean language, my test version is Microsoft® Excel® for Microsoft 365 MSO (Version 2205 Build 16.0.15225.20172) 64-bit. So I would like to ask you to try setting the language to Korean first and see if your file can be displayed properly.

Meanwhile, due to compatibility issues, I wonder if you've tried Creating UTF-8 CSV files from an Excel spreadsheet containing Asian Characters (salesforce.com) to use Unicode (UTF-8).

If it is convenient for you, we would also like to know if the file format of the file you export from is .csv. If yes, please try select Unicode (UTF-8) when you try to export and see if help.

Thank you for taking the time to work with us to fix this issue.

Best regards,

Tin