Universal Text Encoding Converter - 50+ Encodings

Convert between 50+ text encodings: UTF-8, Shift-JIS, GB2312, Windows-1252. Fix mojibake, migrate legacy systems. Browser-based, no uploads.

Source (Input)

Source Encoding:

Select the current encoding of your text

Drop text file here or click to browse

Supports .txt, .csv, .log, .xml, .html, etc.

Or paste/type text:

Target (Output)

Target Encoding:

Select the desired output encoding

Converted text:

Common Mojibake Patterns & Fixes

You See (Mojibake)	Should Be	Cause	Solution
`Ã©`	`é`	UTF-8 read as Windows-1252	Source: Windows-1252 → Target: UTF-8
`Ã¨`	`è`	UTF-8 read as ISO-8859-1	Source: ISO-8859-1 → Target: UTF-8
`â‚¬`	`€`	UTF-8 Euro sign read wrong	Source: Windows-1252 → Target: UTF-8
`??????`	Any non-ASCII	Characters not in encoding	Convert to UTF-8 (supports all characters)
`ÑÐ»Ð¾Ð²Ð¾`	`слово` (Cyrillic)	UTF-8 Cyrillic read as Latin	Source: Windows-1252 → Target: UTF-8
Random symbols	日本語 (Japanese)	Wrong Japanese encoding	Try Shift-JIS, EUC-JP, ISO-2022-JP
Garbled Chinese	中文 (Chinese)	Wrong Chinese encoding	Try GBK, GB2312, Big5, GB18030
`한글` broken	한글 (Korean)	Wrong Korean encoding	Try EUC-KR as source

Encoding Families Quick Reference

Unicode (Modern Standard)

UTF-8: Variable-width, 1-4 bytes, universal support
UTF-16: 2 or 4 bytes, used by Windows internally
Use for: All new projects, web, databases

ISO-8859 Series (Legacy European)

ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1): Western Europe, no Euro
ISO-8859-15 (Latin-9): Western Europe with Euro
ISO-8859-2: Central/Eastern Europe
ISO-8859-5: Cyrillic
Use for: Legacy Unix, old databases

Windows Codepages

Windows-1252: Western European (superset of Latin-1)
Windows-1251: Cyrillic (most common)
Windows-1250: Central European
Use for: Windows legacy apps, old emails

East Asian (CJK)

Shift-JIS: Japanese Windows, most common
EUC-JP: Japanese Unix/Linux
ISO-2022-JP: Japanese email (JIS)
GBK/GB2312: Simplified Chinese
Big5: Traditional Chinese
EUC-KR: Korean legacy
Use for: Legacy Asian system integration

Cyrillic Family

Windows-1251: Most common, Windows systems
KOI8-R: Russian Internet, email, Unix
KOI8-U: Ukrainian variant
ISO-8859-5: Standard Cyrillic
Use for: Russian/Ukrainian legacy data

When to Use Each

New projects: Always UTF-8
Legacy migration: Source encoding → UTF-8
Government/bank data: Check source system docs

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Frequently Asked Questions

Over 50 encodings including Unicode (UTF-8, UTF-16), Western European (ISO-8859-1, Windows-1252), Central European (Windows-1250, ISO-8859-2), Cyrillic (Windows-1251, KOI8-R, KOI8-U), Japanese (Shift-JIS, EUC-JP, ISO-2022-JP), Chinese (GB2312, GBK, GB18030, Big5), Korean (EUC-KR), Greek (ISO-8859-7), Hebrew (ISO-8859-8), Turkish (Windows-1254), Thai (Windows-874), Arabic (ISO-8859-6, Windows-1256), and more.

Browsers have limited auto-detection capabilities. You'll get the best results by knowing your source encoding. Look for hints: if you see specific patterns of garbled characters (like 'Ã©' for 'é'), that indicates UTF-8 read as Windows-1252. Japanese question marks suggest wrong Japanese encoding. Try encodings systematically by region until text appears correctly.

Use this universal converter when: migrating legacy system data with unusual encodings, working with mainframe EBCDIC data, dealing with multiple regional encodings in a single workflow, or troubleshooting encoding issues when you're unsure of the source. Use specific converters when you know exactly which two encodings you're converting between for a streamlined experience.

Encoding families group related character sets: Unicode (UTF-8/16/32) supports all languages. ISO-8859 series covers European languages (Latin-1 through Latin-10). Windows codepages (Windows-1250 through 1258) are Microsoft's regional encodings. East Asian encodings handle CJK (Chinese-Japanese-Korean) scripts. Cyrillic encodings cover Russian and Slavic languages. This organization helps you narrow down the likely encoding based on content origin.

Mojibake occurs when text encoded in one character set is interpreted using another. Common patterns: 'Ã©' instead of 'é' suggests UTF-8 read as Windows-1252. '??????' (question marks) means characters don't exist in the current encoding. Chinese/Japanese showing as random characters indicates wrong CJK encoding. To fix: identify the pattern, select the incorrectly-assumed encoding as source, convert to UTF-8.

Yes. This tool converts character encoding only, preserving line breaks, spacing, and all text content. Upload any text file (.txt, .csv, .log, .xml, .html) and it will maintain structure while converting the character encoding. Binary formatting (bold, italics in Word docs) is not preserved as this is a text-only converter.

Modern browsers support TextDecoder API with 50+ encodings for reading (decoding). However, TextEncoder only writes UTF-8 natively. For output in other encodings, we encode to UTF-8 bytes with appropriate BOM (Byte Order Mark) markers for UTF-16. For legacy encodings as output, the downloaded file is marked with the target encoding, which compatible text editors will respect.

Issue: 'Ã©' instead of 'é' → Solution: Source Windows-1252, target UTF-8. Issue: Japanese shows as '????' → Solution: Try Shift-JIS, EUC-JP, or ISO-2022-JP. Issue: Cyrillic appears wrong → Solution: Try Windows-1251, KOI8-R, or ISO-8859-5. Issue: Chinese garbled → Solution: Try GBK, GB2312 (Simplified), or Big5 (Traditional). Issue: Euro symbol € broken → Solution: Use ISO-8859-15 (Latin-9) or Windows-1252, not ISO-8859-1.

Currently, this tool processes one file at a time to give you full control over source and target encodings for each file. Legacy data often mixes encodings, so file-by-file conversion with visual verification ensures accuracy. For true batch conversion, you'd need server-side processing with predetermined encoding pairs, which would compromise the privacy of our browser-based approach.

Detection tips: 1) Check file metadata or documentation from the source system. 2) Look at file origin: Japanese Windows → Shift-JIS, Chinese government → GB2312/GBK, Russian systems → Windows-1251 or KOI8-R. 3) Try encodings systematically: start with the regional family (East Asian, Cyrillic, etc.). 4) Look for repeated patterns: all vowels broken suggests wrong European encoding, all CJK characters wrong suggests wrong Asian encoding. 5) Use UTF-8 as target since it supports all characters.