Excel: Change default encoding (file origin) of Text Import Wizard to UTF-8 (65001 : Unicode)
Excel: Change default encoding (file origin) of Text Import Wizard to UTF-8 (65001 : Unicode)
Excel: Change default encoding (file origin) of Text Import Wizard to UTF-8 (65001 : Unicode)
Re: Excel: Change default encoding (file origin) of Text Import Wizard to UTF-8 (65001 : Unicode)
I answered a similar question at [Default character encoding for Excel Text Wizard?](https://superuser.com/questions/1076240/default-character-encoding-for-excel-text-wizard/1179240).
I found my answer at [Changing default text import origin type in Excel](http://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2005/03/changing-default-text-import-origin.html).
- Close Excel, if it is open.
- Open the **Registry Editor**.
- Navigate to **HKEY_CURRENT_USER → Software → Microsoft → Office → ▒▒ → Excel → Options**, where ▒▒ is your version of Office, mostly likely the largest number you see there.
- Right-click an empty space on the right side and select **New → DWORD**.
- Name the item **DefaultCPG**, and press Enter to save.
- Right-click on **DefaultCPG** and select **Modify**.
- Set the **Base** to **Decimal**.
- For **Value data**, enter **65001** to set your default to UTF-8. For some other encoding, use the code page identifier, which you can find in the Text Import Wizard in Excel or in [this list](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/intl/code-page-identifiers).
- Click **OK**.
Like Vasille says in the comment to this question, if your file is not actually in UTF-8 format, you may technically want to convert the characters within the file to the encoding you want before opening in Excel. For my purposes, though, UTF-8 does a good enough job of displaying non-corrupted characters.
*Not working? Make sure you set Base to Decimal (Step 7).*
[](https://i.sstatic.net/Rydq0.png)
I found my answer at [Changing default text import origin type in Excel](http://www.lukemiller.org/journal/2005/03/changing-default-text-import-origin.html).
- Close Excel, if it is open.
- Open the **Registry Editor**.
- Navigate to **HKEY_CURRENT_USER → Software → Microsoft → Office → ▒▒ → Excel → Options**, where ▒▒ is your version of Office, mostly likely the largest number you see there.
- Right-click an empty space on the right side and select **New → DWORD**.
- Name the item **DefaultCPG**, and press Enter to save.
- Right-click on **DefaultCPG** and select **Modify**.
- Set the **Base** to **Decimal**.
- For **Value data**, enter **65001** to set your default to UTF-8. For some other encoding, use the code page identifier, which you can find in the Text Import Wizard in Excel or in [this list](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/intl/code-page-identifiers).
- Click **OK**.
Like Vasille says in the comment to this question, if your file is not actually in UTF-8 format, you may technically want to convert the characters within the file to the encoding you want before opening in Excel. For my purposes, though, UTF-8 does a good enough job of displaying non-corrupted characters.
*Not working? Make sure you set Base to Decimal (Step 7).*
[](https://i.sstatic.net/Rydq0.png)