3SL Newsletter July 2013 - Importing Special Characters from CSV

Announcing Cradle-7.4 - start your free trial here

July 2013 [Cradle-6.8.2]

Importing Special Characters from CSV

It is common for information to include special symbols, such as:

It can be difficult to transfer information that contains these symbols between Cradle and other tools - particularly Microsoft Excel and particularly in CSV files.

The problem is that the character encoding used inside Cradle is UTF-8, but this is not the standard character encoding in Excel. Often, the character encoding used inside Microsoft tools is based on the 'code page' set in your PC.

So, to reliably move information between Excel and Cradle in CSV files, we recommend:

  1. Check your code page by opening a Command Prompt and running the command: chcp
    For most European or US PCs, the result is likely to be: 850
  2. Generate the CSV file from Excel, which will be in this encoding
  3. Use the iconv utility to convert this file to UTF-8. The iconv utility is widely available. We include it within the Cradle software distribution, inside:
    4. Windows: %CRADLEHOME%\bin\exe\win32pc
    Linux: $CRADLEHOME/bin/exe/linux-ia32
    Solaris $CRADLEHOME/bin/exe/sparcs2
    The form of the command is:
    iconv -f input-encoding-t output-encoding input-file> output-file

So for example:

iconv -f 850 -t utf-8 exceloutputfile.csv > newfile.csv

and then import the resulting CSV file into Cradle.

If you have problems displaying CSV files from Cradle (which will be in UTF-8) correctly in Excel, then try the reverse conversion:

iconv -f utf-8 -t 850 cradleoutputfile.csv > fileforexcel.csv

iconv supports a very large number of character formats. To see the list supported by iconv on your system, use the command:

iconv –l

Also note that OpenOffice Calc does not have any of these issues. It can export directly to UTF-8. To do this:

  1. Select: File → Save As and choose CSV for the output format:

    2. Save As

  2. In the Export Text File dialog, choose UTF-8 encoding:

    3. Export Text File

    In this issue

    1. 3SL Newsletters
    2. Receive Your Own Newsletter
    3. Newsletter Contents
    4. 3SL Website
    5. Need Help?
    6. New Cradle Products
    7. 3SL Website Shop
    8. Cradle User Conference
    9. 3SL is Exhibiting at SMDC in August
    10. Want a Free Training Course in the US?
    11. Cradle Training in South Africa
    12. Совсем скоро! Викторина по 3SL Cradle в русской группе на linkedin!
    13. New Distributor in China
    14. New Cradle Product Manager in Brazil
    15. Cradle Group on LinkedIn
    16. Do You Want Windows XP?
    17. Do You Want Office 2003?
    18. Cradle-6.8.2 Release
    19. Supported Platforms
    20. Importing Special Characters from CSV
    21. Entering Special Characters
    22. Cradle on Linux
    23. Displaying Diagrams in Web Browsers
    24. Acrobat Compatibility
    25. Mixed Office Installations
    26. Old Versions of Cradle