UTF-8 to ISO-8859-1 Converter | Text Encoding Conversion
Convert text between UTF-8 and ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1). Identify unsupported characters and view hex values for legacy system compatibility.
How to Use This Tool
- 1
Select 'Encode' to convert text to ISO-8859-1 Hex.
- 2
Select 'Decode' to convert ISO-8859-1 Hex back to text.
- 3
Enter your text. Characters not supported by ISO-8859-1 will be marked as '??'.
- 4
Review the hex output to ensure compatibility with your target system.
Use Cases & Examples
Legacy Database Migration
Check if your data fits into an old database column defined as Latin-1 before migration to avoid data corruption.
Debugging 'Mojibake'
Understand why your text looks like 'é' instead of 'é'. This often happens when UTF-8 is misinterpreted as ISO-8859-1.
Protocol Testing
Generate valid hex payloads for older network protocols that strictly require single-byte encodings.
About ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1)
ISO-8859-1: A single-byte encoding that covers most Western European languages. It can only represent the first 256 Unicode code points.
Limitations: Characters outside this range (e.g., Asian characters, emojis, smart quotes) cannot be represented and will be lost or replaced.
Web Usage: While UTF-8 is the modern standard, ISO-8859-1 is still found in older databases and protocols.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q.Why are some characters replaced with '??'?
A. ISO-8859-1 has a very limited character set (256 characters). Emojis, Asian scripts, and some symbols do not exist in this encoding and cannot be converted.
Q.Is ISO-8859-1 the same as Windows-1252?
A. Very similar, but not identical. Windows-1252 adds printable characters in the 0x80-0x9F range where ISO-8859-1 has control codes. This tool strictly follows ISO-8859-1.
Q.Should I use this for new projects?
A. No. Always use UTF-8 for new projects. This tool is intended for maintaining and debugging legacy systems.
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