How to fix "Text shows strange characters like é or �" in Notepad, editors
Text shows strange characters like é or �
What this error means
The file was written in one encoding and is being read in another.
Why it happens
- Files moved between Windows and Mac/Linux
- Old software saving in Windows-1252
How to fix it
- Upload it here: we detect the encoding and convert it to UTF-8
About Text file files
Text files break mostly through encoding: UTF-16 files that look like spaced-out letters, Windows-1252 accents that show as é, NULL bytes, or mixed line endings.