Answer by praaveen for Is it possible to force Excel recognize UTF-8 CSV files automatically?

hi i'm using ruby on rails for csv generation. In our application we plan to go for the multi language(I18n) and we faced an issue while viewing I18n content in the CSV file of windows excel.

Was fine with Linux (Ubuntu) and mac.

We identified that windows excel need to be imported the data again to view the actual data. While import we will get more options to choose character set.

But this can’t be educated for each and every user, so solution we looking for is to open just by double click.

Then we identified the way of showing data by open mode and bom in windows excel with the help of aghuddleston gist. Added at reference.

Example I18n content

In Mac and Linux

Swedish : Förnamn English : First name

In Windows

Swedish : Förnamn English : First name

def user_information_report(report_file_path, user_id)
    user = User.find(user_id)
    I18n.locale = user.current_lang
    open_mode = "w+:UTF-16LE:UTF-8"
    bom = "\xEF\xBB\xBF"
    body user, open_mode, bom
  end

def headers
    headers = [
        "ID", "SDN ID",
        I18n.t('sys_first_name'), I18n.t('sys_last_name'), I18n.t('sys_dob'),
        I18n.t('sys_gender'), I18n.t('sys_email'), I18n.t('sys_address'),
        I18n.t('sys_city'), I18n.t('sys_state'), I18n.t('sys_zip'),
        I18n.t('sys_phone_number')
    ]
  end

def body tenant, open_mode, bom
    File.open(report_file_path, open_mode) do |f|
      csv_file = CSV.generate(col_sep: "\t") do |csv|
        csv << headers
        tenant.patients.find_each(batch_size: 10) do |patient|
          csv <<  [
              patient.id, patient.patientid,
              patient.first_name, patient.last_name, "#{patient.dob}",
              "#{translate_gender(patient.gender)}", patient.email, "#{patient.address_1.to_s} #{patient.address_2.to_s}",
              "#{patient.city}", "#{patient.state}",  "#{patient.zip}",
              "#{patient.phone_number}"
          ]
        end
      end
      f.write bom
      f.write(csv_file)
    end
  end

Important things to note here is open mode and bom

open_mode = "w+:UTF-16LE:UTF-8"

bom = "\xEF\xBB\xBF"

Before writing the CSV insert BOM

f.write bom

f.write(csv_file)

Windows and Mac

File can be opened directly by double clicking.

Linux (ubuntu)

While opening a file ask for the separator options -> choose “TAB”