Problem with csv document not properly converting some text when in spreadsheet

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  dfle3 · Member · Oct 6, 2025 at 10:40 am

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  I downloaded a file from a website which had a list of mine it. The downloaded file seems to be listed as “csv”. My original list was not in spreadsheet form but I was able to create a document in spreadsheet form when opened the csv file. I’m using Open Office for my spreadsheet.

  The problem is that many of the entries are garbled in places, as in for every instance where I have used a quotation mark or scare quotes, the symbols are not displayed properly and they convert to other symbols.

  Does anyone know how to create a spreadsheet without these errors? I don’t want to have to manually change individual entries, even via the Search And Replace option on the spreadsheet, as I don’t think that the fix can be done on a ‘one size fits all’ basis. There are a large number of instances where there are errors.

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

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  mukeshoadcom · Member · Oct 6, 2025 at 11:50 am

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  Hi @dfle3,

  This sounds like a character encoding issue when opening the CSV file. The quotation marks are probably being misread because of encoding mismatch.

  To fix this in OpenOffice:

  1. Open OpenOffice Calc (don’t double-click the CSV)
  2. Go to File → Open
  3. Select your CSV file
  4. In the import dialog, look for Character Set or Encoding
  5. Try changing it to UTF-8 (most common) or Unicode (UTF-8)
  6. Click OK

  This should display the quotation marks correctly.

  However, this isn’t really a WordPress.com issue – it’s about how your spreadsheet software handles CSV files. For help with OpenOffice specifically, you’d get better support at the OpenOffice forums: https://forum.openoffice.org/

  If you’re trying to import this CSV into WordPress, let us know and we can help with that part!