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Why text files look garbled: UTF-8, EUC-KR and other encodings
You open a text file and see question marks or strange symbols where readable words should be. The file is not damaged. Your program simply guessed the wrong encoding. Here is what that means and how BookmarkFiles deals with it.
What an encoding is
A computer stores text as numbers. An encoding is the table that says which number stands for which character. If a file was written with one table and read with another, the characters come out wrong. The problem is common with languages that were covered by regional encodings before Unicode, such as Korean (EUC-KR or CP949), Japanese (Shift_JIS), and Chinese (GBK or Big5).
UTF-8 is the safe default
UTF-8 can represent every character in Unicode and is the standard on the web. New files created today should use UTF-8. Older files from legacy programs may still use a regional encoding.
How BookmarkFiles reads a file
- It first tries to read the file as strict UTF-8. If every byte sequence is valid UTF-8, that is what it uses.
- If the file contains sequences that are not valid UTF-8, it reads the file as EUC-KR (CP949) instead.
- The footer under the editor shows which encoding was used.
Other legacy encodings, such as Shift_JIS or GBK, are not detected. If such a file looks wrong, do not save it from BookmarkFiles. Convert it in a tool made for that encoding first.
What happens when you save
BookmarkFiles saves in UTF-8. If the file was read as EUC-KR, it shows a warning first and only converts the file after you confirm. If you would rather keep the old encoding, cancel and edit the file in a program that supports it.
Two details that are easy to miss
Byte order mark (BOM)
Some UTF-8 files start with an invisible marker called a BOM. BookmarkFiles remembers whether the file had one and writes it back, so saving does not change that property.
Line endings
Windows programs usually end lines with two characters (CRLF), while macOS and Linux use one (LF). BookmarkFiles detects the style of each file and keeps it when saving, so a quick edit does not turn into a change on every line, which matters if the file is tracked in version control.
If text still looks wrong
- Check the footer to see which encoding was used.
- Open a copy in a tool that lets you choose the encoding manually.
- Convert the file to UTF-8 once, then keep working with it in UTF-8.
Related guides
- How BookmarkFiles opens and saves your files
- Organize the text files you use every day
- Find and replace across many files, safely
Ready to try it? Open BookmarkFiles in Chrome or Edge on a desktop computer.