[SOLVED] Using letters with accent in variable data (XML or CSV files)

[andre_gollo]

Hi!

I'm trying to use some variable data in my Illustrator, but can't get it to work properly. Illustrator always skip letters with accent, which makes this function 100% useless to me, since I speak portuguese, which is filled with letters with accent.

Any way to solve this?

Thanks!

[Anna Lander]

are you sure your default font contains accents? Might the font changing help?

[andre_gollo]

Hi Anna!

Yes, it is the default font for our company's brand. I'm pretty sure accents are fine.

Thanks for the response 🙂

[Test Screen Name · Accepted solution]

Choose your encoding carefully. It will make accents disappear if they are wrong.

[andre_gollo]

Hi!

Can you explain this better to me? I've never dealt with CSV and XML files before, neither with variable data. I'm not exactly sure what're you talking about.

Thanks, mate!

[Test Screen Name]

Most people have heard of ASCII. This gives a number code for every ordinary letter. For example A is 65 and d is 100. This works very well without accents. With accents you have a problem: there are at least 4 different sets of numbers that might be used (sometimes lists of numbers, it gets complicated). These are called Encodings. You don't have to know what the code numbers are but you DO need to choose the right encoding. Often the best encoding to choose is UTF-8, if it is available in both apps. You must choose it twice: once when you save the CSV, and once when you import it. This is a little complicated, but it is necessary for almost everyone outside the US and UK to face and solve this problem. (Unfortunately, most programmers are inside US or UK and don't always make it easy or possible).

[andre_gollo]

I'll take a better look into that. Thanks for the tip, mate!

[andre_gollo]

I got it! Since I was using only text variables, I went for CSV instead of XML. I easily typed my data, straight in notepad, and then saved as .csv, selecting UTF-8 as encoding. It worked perfectly! Thanks again 😉

[CarlosCanto]

try saving the file as UTF-8. If that doesn't work, try using Vasily's Variable Importer Script

https://github.com/Silly-V/Adobe-Illustrator/tree/master/Variable%20Importer

[andre_gollo]

Hi Carlos! You mean the XML file? Is this the encoding that the other user talked about on the other response?

[CarlosCanto]

hi andre, yes either xml or csv. I see you solved your problem already.

[andre_gollo]

Yes! Thank you, still. 🙂