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UTF-8 CSV files that Excel likes

5. February 2020
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Excel needs to know that you are using non-ASCII characters in your CSV or it will not display them correctly :)

Add the BOM(Byte Order Mark) to the first line, notifying Excel that you are offering a UTF-8 encoded file.

//headers
header('Pragma: public');
header('Expires: 0');
header('Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0');
header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
header('Content-Type: text/csv');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=your.csv;');
header('Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary'); 

//open file pointer to standard output
$fp = fopen('php://output', 'w');

//add BOM to fix UTF-8 in Excel
fputs($fp, $bom =( chr(0xEF) . chr(0xBB) . chr(0xBF) ));

Enjoy coding …

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Alexander

I am a full-stack developer. My expertise include:

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