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Participant
Aug 25, 2026 7:56 AM UTC
Answered

Data Merge stopped supporting foreign characters in column names

Hi, I’ve updated my InDesign to version 21.5.1 yesterday and noticed, that in Data Merge, it stopped supporting danish letters in the .csv’s column names. It changes the letters to a random character, so the data merge function doesn’t work anymore because it can’t figure out the link between the .csv and the placeholders.
My job relies heavily on data merge so I rolled the update back to 21.4.1 and it works perfectly. I hope the bug will soon be resolved.

    nileshv1578788Correct answer
    Participant
    Aug 30, 2026 2:20 PM UTC

    Try utf-8 csv. I do i with illustration and it works

    3 replies

    nileshv1578788Correct answer
    Participant
    Aug 30, 2026 2:20 PM UTC

    Try utf-8 csv. I do i with illustration and it works

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    leo.r
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    Aug 25, 2026 9:54 AM UTC


    Ok maybe someone has just posted a solution for you (try converting your text to UTF-16):
     

     

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    leo.r
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    Aug 25, 2026 8:35 AM UTC

    InDesign 21.5.1 introduced some improvements in the data merge functionality, maybe the improvements are causing the issue you experience:
     

     

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