Title: Character encoding in export
Last modified: January 31, 2022

---

# Character encoding in export

 *  Resolved [László](https://wordpress.org/support/users/erdoslaszlo/)
 * (@erdoslaszlo)
 * [4 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/character-encoding-in-export/)
 * Dear Support,
 * I have issue on export to csv.
    The user provided Hungarian characters like á,
   é,ő and the file encoding is not correct when I opening it in excel the characters
   looks like this:
 * plugin version:
 * gravity forms: 2.5.16
    GravityExport Lite: 1.10.1
 * Munkáltató adószáma;Név
    55555555555;Kovács Dávid;
 * instead of this
    Munkáltató adószáma;Név 55555555555;Kovács Dávid;
 * System status from Forms / System status / Database Server
    Database Character
   Set: utf8 Database Collation: utf8_general_ci
 * from wp-config.php
    /** Database Charset to use in creating database tables. */
   define( ‘DB_CHARSET’, ‘utf8’ );
 * Can you please help how this can be solved? Thank you.
    -  This topic was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by [László](https://wordpress.org/support/users/erdoslaszlo/).

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

 *  Thread Starter [László](https://wordpress.org/support/users/erdoslaszlo/)
 * (@erdoslaszlo)
 * [4 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/character-encoding-in-export/#post-15311772)
 * Hello Dear Support (again),
 * I did dig into the topic and found this forum where somebody describe a solution
   for the mentioned problem. I’m not familiar with php, but will be so kind and
   check is this can solve the problem or not?
    [https://stackguides.com/questions/40447325/php-export-csv-utf-8-with-bom-doesnt-work](https://stackguides.com/questions/40447325/php-export-csv-utf-8-with-bom-doesnt-work)
 * Thank you, Laszlo
 *  Plugin Author [Doeke Norg](https://wordpress.org/support/users/doekenorg/)
 * (@doekenorg)
 * [4 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/character-encoding-in-export/#post-15312797)
 * Hi [@erdoslaszlo](https://wordpress.org/support/users/erdoslaszlo/),
 * Thank you for looking into this issue more yourself. It can always provide a 
   nice starting of point!
 * I’m just wondering: when downloading the CSV through gravity forms itself, does
   that work? Or do you have the same problem there?
 * By default the exporting of this plugin should work. Just tried it again myself,
   and utf-8 isn’t a problem for me.
 * You say you open the CSV in Excel, is that correct? Or are you downloading the
   xlsx? Because downloading as CSV and then importing it to Excel is the exact 
   thing this plugin tries to avoid 🙂
 * Please let me know. Hopefully we can resolve this quickly.
 *  Thread Starter [László](https://wordpress.org/support/users/erdoslaszlo/)
 * (@erdoslaszlo)
 * [4 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/character-encoding-in-export/#post-15323142)
 * Hello [@doekenorg](https://wordpress.org/support/users/doekenorg/)
 * Thank you for your kind reply.
    Let me explain the reproducing steps. I hope 
   this can help to better understand the issue. 1.) creating form with text fields
   2.) set the email notification in form settings and set the attachment as csv
   file 3.) fill the form with Hungarian characters 4.) check the mailbox and open
   the email sent by gf with the csv file 5.) save the csv file into my local drive(
   D:) 6.) double click on the file to opening it with MS excel.
 * Thank you for your investigation.
 * Br, Laszlo
 *  Plugin Author [Doeke Norg](https://wordpress.org/support/users/doekenorg/)
 * (@doekenorg)
 * [4 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/character-encoding-in-export/#post-15323221)
 * Hi [@erdoslaszlo](https://wordpress.org/support/users/erdoslaszlo/),
 * Thanks for the reproduction. Unfortunately this still works for me. Could you
   perhaps send me an example of your .csv file?
 * And please check all your templates and/or your `functions.php` file for any 
   extra spaces or characters. These characters will be used when the output is 
   created, and can result in malformed data.
 * Otherwise you might need a `bom`. Which is a special character in front of the
   CSV that indicaties UTF-8 characters. You can activate this by adding the following
   code to your `functions.php` file:
 * `add_filter('gfexcel_renderer_csv_use_bom', '__return_true');`
 * Hope this helps. Let me know!
 *  Plugin Author [Doeke Norg](https://wordpress.org/support/users/doekenorg/)
 * (@doekenorg)
 * [4 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/character-encoding-in-export/#post-15360391)
 * Closed due to inactivity. If we can help further, please let us know.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

The topic ‘Character encoding in export’ is closed to new replies.

 * ![](https://ps.w.org/gf-entries-in-excel/assets/icon.svg?rev=3434379)
 * [GravityExport Lite for Gravity Forms](https://wordpress.org/plugins/gf-entries-in-excel/)
 * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/gf-entries-in-excel/#faq)
 * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/gf-entries-in-excel/)
 * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/gf-entries-in-excel/active/)
 * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/gf-entries-in-excel/unresolved/)
 * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/gf-entries-in-excel/reviews/)

 * 5 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [Doeke Norg](https://wordpress.org/support/users/doekenorg/)
 * Last activity: [4 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/character-encoding-in-export/#post-15360391)
 * Status: resolved