TEXTEDIT - Weird characters in downloaded .txt files

Ok, as the title suggests my downloaded text files always have funny characters in them and I am wondering if there is a way to stop this happening because these weird characters do not appear if the same file is downloaded on a windows machine (exact same file).

For example the word "Stereo" in one of the files looks like this on Mac download...

StÈrÈo

but like this on windows download (which is correct)...

Stéréo

The entire file is littered with changed characters and I've tried to find the answer but cannot so any help appreciated.

What application are you viewing in? and what application on Windows?
Sounds like a font issue - these aren't plain text files, are they?
What font is the text in on Windows?

The Mac is on OS X Yosemite and the PC is a cloud based server running windows enterprise.

The files are CSV text files.

They open in excel for PC as they look in the .txt file but on the mac (Office 2011) all kinds of characters show up.

Did you compare standard fonts of the original on the PC with what's used on Mac?
Have you tried opening in TextEdit to see if the same characters show up?

The file was downloaded to my Mac directly from a website and opened in Textedit.

All the weird fonts are already showing in textedit even before it's opened in excel however if opened on a windows machine (again downloaded the same file from the same source) it opens in notepad and does not contain any funny characters nor does if then opened in excel (Windows)

welshred said:

The Mac is on OS X Yosemite and the PC is a cloud based server running windows enterprise.

The files are CSV text files.

They open in excel for PC as they look in the .txt file but on the mac (Office 2011) all kinds of characters show up.

Click to expand...

CSV files by default should open with Excel or Numbers on your Mac, not TextEdit. And if you're getting those weird characters on your Mac it's simply because you do not have the same fonts as you do on the PC.

it was mentioned previously that these are not plain text files, I replied saying CSV but actually they are tab delimited text files and on my Mac they open in text edit by default and on windows notepad.

The file extension is .txt

Is there a fix to this problem?

welshred said:

it was mentioned previously that these are not plain text files, I replied saying CSV but actually they are tab delimited text files and on my Mac they open in text edit by default and on windows notepad.

The file extension is .txt

Is there a fix to this problem?

Click to expand...

Tab delimited text files such as you would download from a bank (account activity) do open in TextEdit. I download those types of files quite often from my bank. However, the problem is still a font problem if they show OK on a PC but not your Mac. You need to figure out which fonts you're missing in order to display those files the same as you do on your PC.

Is there a way to find out what fonts are being used so I can get them for Mac?