Why is my notepad in a different language

Question

I had to download a important tax form to a specific folder to be uploaded later. My only option was notepad. When I open it, it's in another language. I checked my language and location settings and they are correctly set. How can I get this form to open in English? I'm running win/11

Answer 1

Hi, I'm Rodrigo and I will help you.

Is the content of the file in another language, or is it in scrambled characters?

If the contents of the file open on Notepad are in another language, the issue is with the file.

Answer 2

The form content is not actually in another language. The issue is that the file was created as redirected output from a command-line tool, which uses an OEM code page, while Notepad uses a different Windows code page. On non-English systems this mismatch makes the text look like random or foreign characters.

To view the content correctly on Windows 11, use one of these options:

1. Open the file in an editor that supports both OEM and Windows encodings (for example, Microsoft Word) and choose the correct encoding when prompted.
2. If the file was generated by a command like ipconfig > output.txt in Command Prompt, rerun the command in PowerShell instead of Command Prompt and redirect the output there (PowerShell uses a different encoding that Notepad can display correctly).
3. If possible, run the command again and copy the output directly from the console window, then paste it into Notepad instead of redirecting to a file.

If this is a downloaded tax form (for example, a PDF or HTML) that was saved with a .txt extension and opened in Notepad, it will also appear as unreadable characters. In that case, open it with the correct application (such as a browser or PDF reader) instead of Notepad.

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References:

• Notepad.exe shows incorrect characters in file created by redirected output from command line utilities on non-English systems