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Add UTF-8 BOM to CSV exports for Excel users #2959
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This could be another export button or option so that Excel users can know that the data will appear in the correct format |
This issue has been mentioned on Specify Community Forum. There might be relevant details there: |
What is the status of this feature? |
@FedorSteeman This has not yet been implemented, so data still must be imported into Excel using the 'Get Data' functions to import CSVs with the appropriate encoding. The initial controversy surrounding the use of a Byte Order Mark (BOM) for UTF-8 encoding was due to the fact that it is "not required nor recommended" by the Unicode standard. However, Microsoft Excel requires a BOM to correctly identify a CSV file as UTF-8 instead of the local compatibility locale (i.e., ANSI). Either we will need to release an update that provides the option to add BOM to CSV exports (my preferred approach) or we will need to wait for Microsoft to improve the mechanism Excel uses when opening CSV files as other spreadsheet applications have (Apple Numbers, Google Sheets, LibreOffice Calc, etc.). I will raise this issue again with the developers, but our timeline for the remainder of the year is quite full. As a result, development on a solution is unlikely to begin until early next year if our team does start work on this feature. Thank you for your message! |
@grantfitzsimmons I cannot stress enough how large of a stumbling block this is for getting users comfortable with using Specify7 over Specify6. Since the latter can directly export to M$ Excel format, end users perceive this as a major shortcoming of the web-based version. |
@FedorSteeman We have a new PR opened to resolve this now: #5204 |
Excel seems to not use UTF-8 by default and requires major system changes to work
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/excel-read-csv-set-utf-8-as-default-for-all-csv/62eb4068-fc70-4f9b-9bd7-c904713beaf0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_order_mark#UTF-8
Requested By: Many users
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