Importing Text in a .csv file

[Bmistry]

Hi,

I import data from a .csv file into an Access DB on a daily basis. Two of
the fields are Memo type fields that can contain either French or English
text.

When I import the data and look at the memo fields all French text with
accents (such as È) are being converted into jibberish.
I have ensured that Office has been set to enable french text and when i
look at the .csv file all the text is normal.

On top of this the import is taking any apostrophe's (') and changing them
to this charecter - Æ

Not sure why this is happening either. I have ensured that the table that
the file is being imported to has the 2 fields set to memo and the import
specification also flags them as memo fields.

Any help is much appreciated - it's driving me crazy!

Bhavini

 

[John Nurick]

Hi Bhavini,

This is probably a character set/code page issue. Use File|Get External
Data|Import to import the file manually, and click the Advanced...
button in the wizard. This lets you choose the code page used to
interpret the csv file. Pick a likely setting and see if it works; if
not, try another. WHen you've got it right, save the result as an import
specification and use it in future imports.

 

[Bmistry]

That doesn't seem to work - any other ideas?

Hi Bhavini,

This is probably a character set/code page issue. Use File|Get External
Data|Import to import the file manually, and click the Advanced...
button in the wizard. This lets you choose the code page used to
interpret the csv file. Pick a likely setting and see if it works; if
not, try another. WHen you've got it right, save the result as an import
specification and use it in future imports.

 

[John Nurick]

It is almost certain that this is an encoding issue, either to do with
the code page you are using in the import wizard or the font you are
using in Access.

You say "when I look at the .csv file all the text is normal". What
software do you use to open the file, and what font is it using? What
happens when you use that font in the Access textboxes?

It seems highly relevant that character 146 (0x92) in the standard
"Windows (Western)" character set is the "right single quotation mark"
(easily mistaken for an apostrophe), while in most DOS character sets it
is the "Latin capital letter AE". Similarly a "Latin capital letter E
with acute" in the Windows character set would appear as the top left
corner of a double box in a DOS character set.