Question

I want to export some data from my jruby on rails webapp to excel, so I create a csv string and send it as a download to the client using

send_data(text, :filename => "file.csv", :type => "text/csv; charset=CP1252", :encoding => "CP1252")

The file seems to be in UTF-8 which Excel cannot read correctly. I googled the problem and found that iconv can convert encodings. I try to do that with:

ic = Iconv.new('CP1252', 'UTF-8')
text = ic.iconv(text)

but when I send the converted text it does not make any difference. It is still UTF-8 and Excel cannot read the special characters. there are several solutions using iconv, so this seems to work for others. When I convert the file on the linux shell manually with iconv it works.

What am I doing wrong? Is there a better way?

Im using:
– jruby 1.3.1 (ruby 1.8.6p287) (2009-06-15 2fd6c3d) (Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM 1.6.0_19) [i386-java]
– Debian Lenny
– Glassfish app server
– Iceweasel 3.0.6

Edit:
Do I have to include some gem to use iconv?

Solution:
S.Mark pointed out this solution:
You have to use UTF-16LE encoding to make excel understand it, like this:

text= Iconv.iconv('UTF-16LE', 'UTF-8', text)

Thanks, S.Mark for that answer.

Answer 1

According to my experience, Excel cannot handle UTF-8 CSV files properly. Try UTF-16 instead.

Note: Excel’s Import Text Wizard appears to work with UTF-8 too

Edit: A Search on Stack Overflow give me this page, please take a look that.

According to that, adding a BOM (Byte Order Mark) signature in CSV will popup Excel Text Import Wizard, so you could use it as work around.