How to find out the character set of a text file

Question

Is the a tool (mac or online) that can help me to find out the character set of a text file, and then convert it to utf-8 ?

Solution 1

If you are using Windows try downloading Notepad++. It should recognize the encoding and offers several conversions including UTF-8.

Solution 2

• for linux, use file -i filename
• for mac, use file -I filename

For instance,

$ file -i readme.txt 
readme.txt: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

BTW, for converting, use iconv， for instance,

iconv -f ISO-8859-1 -t UTF-8 filename

Comments

[ragnarius]

Nice tool, thank you!! (my score is 11 so I can't boost your).

[Adrien Be]

if you need to convert your file: rishida.net/tools/conversion

[ragnarius]

Thanks, but it does not convert

[SparkAndShine]

In speaking of converting, use the command iconv. For instance, iconv -f ISO-8859-1 -t UTF-8 filename

[niaomingjian]

With file command, why did both two files encoded with big5 and gb2312 present iso-8859-1?