UTF-8 Decoder

A PowerShell script with a GUI designed to decode text corrupted by encoding mismatches, converting it from ISO-8859-1 to UTF-8 for proper display of special and non-English characters.

I created this tool to solve a recurring issue where text, like city names or imported data, appears garbled (e.g., Hà Nội as Hà N�i or Сочи as Со�и) due to encoding errors. Websites and apps often misinterpret text saved in legacy encodings like ISO-8859-1 as UTF-8, scrambling characters from languages with unique scripts. This script provides an easy way to decode and correct that text.

Features

• Text Decoding:
  • Converts text from ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1) encoding to UTF-8, restoring special characters in original languages like Vietnamese, Thai, and Russian.
  • Handles input like:
    • Before: Hà N�i → After: Hà Nội
    • Before: �รุ����มหา��ร → After: กรุงเทพมหานคร
    • Before: Со�и → After: Сочи
• User-Friendly GUI:
  • Input corrupted text in a text box with a "Paste text here..." placeholder that clears on focus.
  • Displays decoded text in a read-only output box.
  • Features a "Copy Text" button to copy the corrected result to the clipboard.

Steps to Use:

• Enter Corrupted Text:
  • Click into the "Corrupted Text" input box (starting with "Paste text here..." in gray) and paste or type the garbled text.
  • The placeholder will vanish when you begin typing.
• Decode Text:
  • Click the "Decode Text" button to convert the input from ISO-8859-1 to UTF-8.
  • The corrected text will appear in the "Decoded Text" box below.
• Copy Decoded Text:
  • Click the "Copy Text" button to copy the decoded text to your clipboard.
  • You’ll see a confirmation message, or an error if the output is empty.
  • You may also highlight and copy any text you want using the OS copy shortcut.

Important Notes

• Encoding Focus: This tool is tailored for ISO-8859-1 to UTF-8 conversion. It won’t correct text already in UTF-8 or other encodings.
• Permissions: Requires standard PowerShell execution rights. Run as Administrator if clipboard or GUI issues occur.
• PowerShell Version: Compatible with PowerShell 5.1 or later (included with Windows 10/11). Tested with PowerShell 7.

Compile Standalone

To create a standalone executable without the console window, follow these steps in PowerShell:

Install-Module ps2exe
Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope Process -Force
ps2exe "UTF8Decoder.ps1" "UTF8Decoder.exe" -noConsole