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Text Processing

Mojibake Repair (Encoding Detective)

· Last updated：2026-07-30

Fix garbled text (mojibake) caused by wrong-encoding decoding — reverse UTF-8/Latin-1, Windows-1252, GBK, Shift-JIS, Big5, and MacRoman chains. Auto mode tries all and picks the cleanest result.

Details

What this tool helps you do

Mojibake is the garbled text you see when bytes were encoded in one character encoding but decoded as another (e.g. UTF-8 bytes shown as Latin-1, producing é instead of é). This tool reverses the wrong decode: it re-encodes the garbled string using the suspected wrong decoder, then re-decodes those bytes with the correct encoding. Auto mode tries every common chain (Latin-1, Windows-1252, GBK, Shift-JIS, Big5, MacRoman) and scores each candidate by how much clean printable text it yields, so you can paste mystery garble and let the detective find the original. Great for fixing broken CSV exports, mislabeled web pages, database import artifacts, and copy-paste between locales.

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Written by the Elysia Tools team

Tool usage guide

Learn when to use this tool, what it supports, and how real users apply it.

Key facts

Category
Text Processing
Input types
textarea, select
Output type
html
Sample coverage
4
API ready
Yes

Overview

Mojibake Repair fixes garbled text caused by decoding bytes with the wrong character encoding. Paste text such as "café" or "中文", choose a repair chain, or let Auto mode test supported chains and select the cleanest result.

When to use

  • Repair garbled text from broken CSV exports, web pages, or database imports.
  • Restore text damaged by UTF-8, Latin-1, Windows-1252, GBK, Shift-JIS, Big5, or MacRoman mismatches.
  • Identify the likely encoding chain when you are unsure how the text became corrupted.

How it works

  1. 1Paste the garbled text into the required text field.
  2. 2Select Auto mode or choose a specific repair chain.
  3. 3The tool reverses the suspected wrong decoding and reconstructs the original text.
  4. 4Auto mode compares supported candidates and returns the cleanest printable result as HTML.

Use cases

  • Fix mojibake in exported CSV text before using it in another application.
  • Restore names, punctuation, and multilingual text affected by database import encoding errors.
  • Repair copied text from web pages or documents displayed with the wrong character set.

Examples

1. Restore a garbled accented word

Data analyst

Background

An exported record displays the French word "café" as "café" because UTF-8 bytes were read as Latin-1.

Problem

Recover the readable accented text without manually testing encoding combinations.

How to use

Paste "café" into the Garbled text field and leave Repair chain set to Auto.

text: "café"; chain: "auto"

Outcome

The tool identifies the clean repair and returns "café".

2. Repair a garbled smart quote

Content editor

Background

A copied sentence contains "’" instead of the right single quote character.

Problem

Restore the punctuation before publishing the text.

How to use

Paste "’" into the Garbled text field and use Auto mode.

text: "’"; chain: "auto"

Outcome

FAQ

What is mojibake?

Mojibake is garbled text created when bytes encoded in one character set are decoded using another.

Can I repair "café"?

Yes. Auto mode can reverse the UTF-8-as-Latin-1 error and recover "café".

Which encoding chains are supported?

Supported chains include UTF-8 with Latin-1, Windows-1252, GBK, Shift-JIS, Big5, or MacRoman, plus GBK misread as UTF-8.

What does Auto mode do?

It tries the supported repair chains and selects the candidate with the cleanest printable text.

What input does the tool require?

Enter the garbled text in the text field. The repair chain is optional and defaults to Auto.

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