Convert UTF‑16 XML into spreadsheet-ready UTF‑8 CSV.
Open XML exports created by Windows, ERP, accounting, and legacy systems without manually transcoding the source first.
Open the private converter ↗- Input
- UTF-16LE / BE
- Output
- UTF-8 CSV
- Detection
- BOM + declaration
The reliable conversion model
XMLSlice detects UTF-16 little-endian and big-endian byte order marks and decodes supported declarations with the browser TextDecoder. CSV output is written as UTF-8 with a byte order mark for broad spreadsheet compatibility.
Understand the structure
What matters before conversion
Byte order changes decoding
UTF-16 stores code units as byte pairs. The byte order mark indicates whether the least or most significant byte appears first, allowing the decoder to reconstruct text correctly.
XML declarations provide a second signal
When no UTF-16 byte order mark is present, a supported encoding declared in the XML header may guide decoding. Unsupported labels fall back to UTF-8 and can produce visibly incorrect text.
CSV uses a practical interchange encoding
The generated CSV uses UTF-8 with a BOM so modern Excel, Numbers, LibreOffice, and data tools can recognize non-ASCII characters more reliably.
Practical workflow
Convert in four clear steps
- 01
Keep the original bytes
Do not paste UTF-16 XML through an editor that may silently change or corrupt its encoding.
- 02
Open the file in XMLSlice
The analysis summary reports the detected encoding next to the file name.
- 03
Inspect accented and non-Latin text
Use the preview to verify names, symbols, and language-specific characters before export.
- 04
Export UTF-8 CSV
Open the result with explicit UTF-8 import settings if a legacy spreadsheet still guesses the encoding incorrectly.
Worked example
Multilingual record example
The logical XML is shown as text here; the source file may store the same characters as UTF-16LE or UTF-16BE bytes.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
<people>
<person><name>İpek Öz</name><city>İstanbul</city></person>
<person><name>佐藤 葵</name><city>東京</city></person>
</people>name,city
İpek Öz,İstanbul
佐藤 葵,東京name, cityCorrect preview text is the most useful quick check. Replacement characters or scrambled letters usually indicate an incorrect or unsupported source encoding.
Quality control
Conversion checklist
- ✓Retain the original BOM when present.
- ✓Check the XML declaration for an accurate encoding label.
- ✓Verify multilingual text in the preview.
- ✓Select UTF-8 explicitly when importing into older spreadsheet software.
Questions and answers
UTF-16 XML FAQ
Does XMLSlice support both UTF-16 byte orders?
Yes. It recognizes UTF-16LE and UTF-16BE byte order marks.
Why does the output use UTF-8 instead of UTF-16?
UTF-8 is the common interchange format for CSV and is broadly supported by spreadsheets, databases, programming languages, and web tools.
What if the XML declares a legacy encoding?
XMLSlice can use encodings supported by the browser's TextDecoder. Unsupported labels fall back to UTF-8, so the preview should always be checked.