Signals Notebook: CSV exports and imports with Special Characters or Asian Characters

When I download CSV files from Signals Notebook, some special characters get translated into other special characters.

Cause:

This issue is caused by MS Excel setting which uses different charset for CSV files. This issue often occurs when Windows for Asian languages is used, as its default charset is different from the one for Signals Notebook. The CSV file exported from Signals Notebook uses 'UTF-8'. For MS Excel, the default charset can be different from 'UTF-8', depending on the system settings.

Solution:

The problem can be solved if you indicate the encoding when you open a CSV file in MS Excel. For example:

1. Open an blank Excel document -> Data -> From Text/CSV.
   
2. Choose your CSV file -> Import. 
3. Change the File Origin to 'Unicode (UTF-8)'.
   
4. Click "Load".

By following these steps, you can open the CSV 

Important Note when Importing CSV with Special Characters to Signals Notebook:

When you import a CSV file to Signals Notebook, for example, User Bulk Import/Update, Materials Bulk Import/Update, etc, it is important that the CSV file is in UTF-8 character encoding. Particularly when you are using an Asian version of Windows and MS Office, please make sure you open the source CSV file as instructed in this article.

When saving a CSV file from MS Excel to import into Signals Notebook, please follow the instructions below.

1. Select File -> Save As.
2. Select file type as 'CSV UTF-8(Comma delimited) (*.csv)'
   
3. Click Save.