A character set determines how textual data is encoded and displayed when uploading Contact lists or composing and sending email messages. Character sets are crucial because they specify which language characters, symbols, and special marks will appear correctly for your Contacts and within your Contact data.

You can set either of two character sets as the default character set for your individual login.

Role & usage

• Data import: When importing Contact lists (especially in CSV format), the chosen character set governs how names, email addresses, and other fields are interpreted. If your data contains accents, non-English letters, Asian scripts, or emojis, you must select a character set (commonly UTF-8) that supports these characters. Choosing the wrong character set may result in corrupted data—replacing intended characters with question marks or the replacement symbol.
• Email composition and delivery: When creating a message, the character set dictates whether special or extended characters display properly to recipients. This is vital for delivering communications in multiple languages or using branding elements with symbols and diacritics.

Character sets

NOTE: Character set selection is an optional feature that is not enabled by default. To have it enabled in your account, create a case.

The character set that you choose will manage how lists are uploaded and how messages are created. So before choosing a default character set, you should understand the distinction.

• Western Characters - This "extended version" character set (ISO 8859-15) includes characters that are found in most western languages; it accommodates characters such as the Swedish Ö and the Spanish ñ.
• International Characters - This UTF-8 character set includes characters that are found in most western languages plus Asian characters.

NOTE: Custom Fields cannot interpret some of the characters in the International Characters set. Consider using Enhanced Fields instead.

Choose a default character set

To choose a default character set:

1. Access the Admin interface.
2. Navigate to Messages > Options > Character Set.

3. Click a radio button to select a character set.

4. Click Submit.

The page refreshes and a confirmation message displays at the top of the page.

The character set that you chose is now your default character set.

NOTE: The default character set can be overridden when uploading a list of Contacts. Refer to Character sets when uploading, below, for more information.

Character sets when uploading

Admins can choose a character set to be used by the upload list when uploading a list of Contacts.

NOTE: This option can be disabled so that Admins are not able to choose a character set for the upload and the default character set is automatically used.

To have this option disabled, create a case with our Customer Support team.

Upload character-set options

As shown above, there are a few character-set options available when uploading a list of Contacts into your account. These are described below and matched to the option on the Character Set page.