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Student Names Show Garbled or Strange Characters After CSV Import

Fix student names showing strange or garbled characters (é, ñ, ü) after importing a CSV file. Learn how to save your file in the correct UTF-8 format using Google Sheets or Excel on Windows.

Updated over 2 weeks ago

Overview

When importing students via a CSV file, some names may appear with strange or garbled characters — for example, a name like Juárez might show up as Juárez or a similar jumble of symbols. This is a file encoding issue that happens on the CSV file itself before it's uploaded to Hovn, and it's especially common when saving CSV files using Microsoft Excel on Windows.

Available for: Service Provider Admins

Why Does This Happen?

Hovn uses UTF-8, the modern standard for storing text that includes accented letters, special characters, and names from languages other than English. When you open and save a CSV in Excel on Windows, Excel sometimes saves it in an older format called ANSI (or Windows-1252) instead of UTF-8. This mismatch causes accented characters like é, ñ, ü, ó and others to display incorrectly when the file is imported.

This commonly affects names that include:

  • Accented vowels (é, á, í, ó, ú)

  • Tildes (ñ)

  • Cedillas (ç)

  • Other non-English characters

How to Fix It

If you already have a CSV file that was saved incorrectly, you can re-save it in the proper UTF-8 format before importing. Follow the steps for your software below.

Option 1: Use Google Sheets (Recommended — Works on Any Computer)

This is the easiest and most reliable method:

  1. Open Google Sheets at sheets.google.com

  2. Upload your CSV file

    • Click File → Import

    • Select your CSV file from your computer

    • Under "Separator type," choose Comma

    • Click Import data

  3. Check that the names look correct in the spreadsheet

  4. Download as a properly formatted CSV

    • Click File → Download → Comma Separated Values (.csv)

  5. Import this new file into Hovn — the characters should now appear correctly

Option 2: Save as UTF-8 in Microsoft Excel (Windows)

  1. Open your CSV file in Excel

  2. Click File → Save As

  3. Choose a save location, then open the file format dropdown

  4. Select CSV UTF-8 (Comma delimited) (.csv) — not the plain "CSV (Comma delimited)" option

  5. Click Save

  6. Import this new file into Hovn

⚠️ Important: Look specifically for "CSV UTF-8" in the format list. The standard "CSV" option will not fix the issue.

Option 3: Use Notepad (Windows — Advanced)

  1. Open your CSV file in Notepad (right-click the file → Open with → Notepad)

  2. Check the names — if they look garbled here too, continue with the steps below

  3. Click File → Save As

  4. At the bottom of the save dialog, change the Encoding dropdown to UTF-8

  5. Click Save

  6. Import this new file into Hovn

Preventing This Issue in the Future

  • Always use Google Sheets to create or edit your CSV files before importing — it handles encoding automatically

  • If you use Excel on Windows, always choose the CSV UTF-8 format when saving, not the default CSV option

  • After creating your CSV, double-check names with accented characters before importing to make sure they display correctly

Still Seeing Strange Characters?

If you've re-saved the file and the issue persists:

  1. Open the CSV in a plain text editor (like Notepad on Windows or TextEdit on Mac) and check whether the names look correct there — if they're garbled in the text editor, the file encoding wasn't saved correctly

  2. Try the Google Sheets method — it's the most reliable fix

  3. Contact Support and share:

    • Your original CSV file (as an attachment)

    • A screenshot showing the garbled names in Hovn

    • Which software you used to create the file (e.g., Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers)

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