Save a CSV as UTF-8 with a BOM
Every CSV from this tool is UTF-8 text. Some versions of Excel guess a different encoding when they open a CSV by double-click, which turns é into é and breaks Chinese, Greek or Cyrillic text. A byte-order mark (BOM) at the start of the file tells Excel it is UTF-8.
Your file is never uploaded. The converter runs in your browser and makes no network requests while it works.
Open the Excel to CSV converter
Steps
- Load the spreadsheet and pick the sheet as usual.
- Tick UTF-8 BOM (for Excel) in the controls.
- Download the file and open it in Excel. Names such as José or Zoë should now display correctly.
Good to know
When to use it
Turn the BOM on when the person receiving the file will open it in desktop Excel by double-clicking.
When to leave it off
Leave it off for databases, scripts, web importers and most accounting apps. Some of them read the BOM as part of the first column name, so a header called Date arrives as an invisible character followed by Date and the import fails.
How to tell if a file has one
A BOM is three bytes (EF BB BF) at the very start of the file. Most text editors show the encoding as UTF-8 with BOM in the status bar.
Another option
If you can't control how the file is opened, Excel's data import wizard lets you choose UTF-8 by hand, and then no BOM is needed.
Questions
Does the BOM change my data?
No. It is an invisible marker before the first character. The cells are the same.
Can I add a BOM to an existing CSV?
Yes. Load the .csv in the tool, tick the option and download it again.
Have bank statements as PDFs instead? RowSmith converts text-based PDF statements to CSV or Excel in your browser.
This guide was written with AI assistance and reviewed against the tool's behaviour. Always review your output before using it.