Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

Hi There:

I apologize if this has been answered before. I searched but could not find a topic that covered it.

Just recently I encountered a problem where I am trying to open a CSV file but when I do, all I get is one cell full of what looks like chinese characters. When I open it, the language setting is "English" but that does not seem to matter. It is supposed to be a spreadsheet with many rows and columns of data, but it opens as just one cell full of chinese characters.

Also, has anyone else had this problem: When I use google to search for a solution to this problem, the links show many topics in this forum. When I click on the link, Chrome does not direct me to the topic, it just says it cannot find the website.

I suspect something about the csv is malformed. Can you open the csv in Notepad? If so, try making a new version of the file that includes only a few lines and post it here. Be sure to save a copy of the original. There is an upload Attachment tab just below the box where you type a response.

I have attached what it looks like. In Notepad and in Calc.

This also happens to files that used to work just fine. I recently upgraded from Windows 7 from Windows 8 (yes, it was an upgrade, lol). Could this have something to do with it?

My guess is that you have a plain text file but OO (and Wordpad) are for some reason interpreting it using the wrong character encoding, probably UTF-16.

Instead of opening the file, try this: File > New > Spreadsheet, then Insert > Sheet from file. Choose your file and OK. You should get the text import window. At the top, check the "Character set" setting--my guess is that it's not set properly. If it's not already, change it to "UTF-8" and see what happens.

I might have discovered the problem. The documents I am trying to open but look bad are labeled as "Open Office XML" documents. The ones that open in the proper format are labeled "Open Office Spreadsheet". I downloaded the files like usual. Why would they open up as XML docs. How do I change them to "spreadsheets".

If you're downloading files through your web browser, and the browser is Internet Explorer, it's known to change the file name suffix (file name extension) for you automatically, which confuses WIndows as to what type of file you have and what application should open it.

Have you tried starting OO first, then using File > Open to open the documents? OO should be able to determine the correct file type no matter what the file name is.

Try renaming the file to have a .ods extension

acknak had the solution. I only had to change to format. It was opening in unicode. Once I switched to UTF-8, everything was fine.

acknak had the solution. I only had to change to format. It was opening in unicode. Once I switched to UTF-8, everything was fine.

yeah baby, that was the ticket. muchos grahh-shuss