Forum Discussion
Notepad corrupting accented letters in text files, showing as boxed question marks
Hello,
I work out of .txt files in Notepad and recently moved from a Windows 10 computer to a new one with Windows 11. Text files I've had for years with accented letters are now corrupted. Regardless of what character they were, they display in Notepad as boxed question marks. I didn't notice until after I saved changes. When I open the same file or copy and paste the text elsewhere, the box carries over as a space. Naturally, I can't search within the file for the character because it pastes in the field as a space.
These characters existed without issue for years in Notepad throughout previous versions of Windows. Because I'd been copying and pasting text into Notepad and saving, I know that some characters, such as in Japanese, Chinese, and Hungarian languages, were too much for the old Notepad to save without changing the default format, which I never did. I preferred to maintain a universal format for the text file for compatibility.
My language setting is and has always been English. I do not need or want to change it.
Opening the same file changing Encoding from Auto-Detect to ANSI or UTF-8 only changes the boxed question mark to a space. I don't know how Microsoft could get this so wrong after so many decades.
I believe it's too late to salvage all my accented characters in texts I've saved over, but how do I prevent this other than switching to another application?
Based on your description, it looks like you have an encoding issue,
Do you still have access to the old computer? If so, you can see which encoding it was using to save your files
If not, you may try to open one of them using Notepad ++For future use, txt files aren't the best option, you can use OneNote to save and sync all your text notes or configurations you have
- Thanks for the reply, Ahmed.
I do have access to the previous computer. However, these text files have successfully saved in regular Notepad across multiple computers across multiple Windows versions over multiple years, decades even. Windows Notepad 11 is the first and only version not to display and to indeed corrupt such basic characters as á, é, È, ô, õ, ü, º, and †. After trying to change the Encoding, these now display as space characters instead of boxes. This is a massive fail on Microsoft's part. Aside from switching to third-party software, what is the solution native to Windows Notepad 11?- Hello howisya,
- Well, You may try to change the font used in this file in Notepad using settings.
- Also, Try the Notepad++ app to see if it helps display your TXT files correctly.
- Finally, as you have access to your previous computer, Can you save your files in MS OneNote or Word files and maybe check the correct Language and Encoding settings to see if it matches the new computer?
