We have a client who needs data exported from our SQL database.
The data can/does contain many non-english characters.
At the moment we are sending a UTF-8 encoded CSV, however some of the users are on Macs.
THE QUESTION: Is there a file format / encoding combo that will preserve the multilingual character support and be readable by most applications?
(Other then .xls or .xlsx)
The UTF-8 encoding should handle all non-English characters. The question is which file format to use that will be readable across different platforms.
Why not just export the data as a flat text file using the Export Wizard in MS SQL? Check the 'Unicode' box when exporting. I've tried this from a database containing German, Japanese and English text, and all the characters display correct once exported to the .txt file.
