Fix Garbled Text and Accented Characters
Repair names, email lists and CSV files where accented letters turned into gibberish, like chloé instead of chloé or “ instead of a quote mark.
Why text gets garbled
Accented letters like é are stored as two bytes in modern UTF-8 files. When a program opens the file as an older Western format (Windows-1252, often Excel on Windows), each byte is shown as its own character, so é becomes é, ü becomes ü and curly quotes become “.
This tool reverses exactly that mistake, word by word, and only changes words that decode cleanly, so correct text, emoji and other languages are left alone. To stop it happening again, save CSVs as "CSV UTF-8" in Excel.
How to use the Fix Garbled Text
- Paste the damaged text, or open the .txt or .csv file.
- Press Fix text.
- Check the list of changes underneath to see exactly what was corrected.
- Copy the fixed text or download it as a new file.
Where garbled text comes from
Opening a UTF-8 CSV in Excel by double-clicking, then saving it again.
Exporting contacts from one system and importing them into another that expects a different encoding.
Copying text between old and new software, or between Windows and Mac programs.
Emails and web pages that declare the wrong character set.
Fixing a CSV for your email platform
Open the damaged CSV in this tool, fix it and download the result. The downloaded file is saved as UTF-8 with the marker Excel needs, so names display correctly when opened again.
Then import it into your email platform or CRM as usual.
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Frequently asked questions
Why do accented letters turn into é and similar?
The file was saved as UTF-8 but opened as an older Western format (Windows-1252), often by Excel. Each accented letter's two bytes are then shown as two separate characters.
Will it damage text that's already correct?
No. It only changes words that contain the typical garbled pattern and that decode cleanly. Correct accents, emoji and other alphabets are left alone.
How do I stop it happening again?
In Excel, save CSV files as "CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited)". When importing a CSV, choose UTF-8 (65001) as the file origin.
Can it fix question marks or empty boxes?
No. When letters were replaced by ? or a box, the original letters were thrown away and can't be recovered.
Does it work on whole files?
Yes. Open a .txt or .csv file and the whole thing is fixed at once; only damaged words change.
Why do some characters still look wrong?
If letters were replaced by a question mark or a box, the original information was lost when the file was saved, and no tool can recover it.