How to Apply UTF 8 Encoding on CSV File in Excel

What Is UTF-8 Encoding?

The UTF-8 encoding is the most used character encoding for the internet. It is used in emails and web pages. It allows access to both Unicode standard characters and ASCII characters.

How to Apply UTF-8 Encoding on a CSV File in Excel: 2 Ways

Method 1 – Using the Save As Command

Steps:

Open the CSV file in Excel.
Go to the File tab.

Choose the Save As command.
From the drop-down list, choose CSV UTF-8 (Comma Delimited) (*.csv) option.
Click on Save.

Method 2 – Applying VBA to Encode a CSV File

Steps:

Go to the Developer tab and select Visual Basic.

The VBA editor will appear.
Select Insert and choose Module to open a VBA Module.

Enter the following code in the Module and Save the code.

Sub EncodingToUTF8()
  Dim AM_WS As Worksheet
  Dim AM_Path As String
  Application.ScreenUpdating = False
  AM_Path = ActiveWorkbook.Path & "\" & _
  Left(ActiveWorkbook.Name, InStr(ActiveWorkbook.Name, ".") - 1)
  For Each AM_WS In Worksheets
    AM_WS.Copy
    ActiveWorkbook.SaveAs Filename:=AM_Path & "_" & AM_WS.Name _
    & ".csv", FileFormat:=xlCSVUTF8, CreateBackup:=False
    ActiveWorkbook.Close False
  Next
  Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

We named the Subroutine as EncodingToUTF8. The first variable is AM_WS which is a Worksheet variable. The second one is AM_Path and it is a String type variable. In the next few lines, the code takes each worksheet and changes its name to Workbook name_Worksheet name.csv in this format. The FileFormat:=xlCSVUTF8 line encodes each CSV file with UTF-8 encoding.