Arabic subtitle files (srt) encoding is corrupted on windows 7

Question

i copied some arabic subtitle files from a friend and when trying to view them on windows 7 home premium with notepad the texts appears as follows:

ÃíåÇ ÇáÓÇÏÉ ÃäÇ ÇáÂä Úáì æÔß ÅÑÓÇá ÅÔÇÑÉ
ãä åÐÇ ÇáßãÈíæÊÑ ÇáãÍãæá ÚÈÑ ãÒæÏ ÎÏãÉ ÇáÅäÊÑäÊ

as a quick workaround, i open the file with microsoft word, and choose the encoding Arabic (Windows) , so the text will appear correctly, then i copy the text, and paste it in the srt file, and save the file as UTF-8

but i was looking if there's another good solution to avoid such problem. please advise.

Solution 1

The software that loads the subtitle normally have a way for you to choose the encoding.

In DirectVobSub it's on the very first tab as a drop-down. In MPC(-HC), it's a similar drop-down in the default subtitle style page in options.

Solution 2

1. download Notepad++
2. open the notepad document using notepad++
3. menu bar , click encoding , then character sets,arabic, windows 1256