Title: Changing Text Encoding
Last modified: August 18, 2016

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# Changing Text Encoding

 *  [mythusmage](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mythusmage/)
 * (@mythusmage)
 * [20 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-text-encoding/)
 * How do you? Are you stuck with UTF-8 or can you change text encoding.
 * Here’s why I ask…
 * A “:” becomes a “3A”.
 * A “/” becomes a “2F”
 * A “black space” becames a “20”
 * I suspect the UTF-8 text encoding, but I need to know how to change text encoding
   to check it out. Anybody have any idea?

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

 *  [moshu](https://wordpress.org/support/users/moshu/)
 * (@moshu)
 * [20 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-text-encoding/#post-378701)
 * You can change the encoding in admin > Options > Reading.
    Be aware that any 
   change you make is NOT retroactive; meaning posts saved with utf-8 encoding will
   display oddly after changing it to something else, e.g. iso-8859-1. The new encoding
   will apply only to posts written _after_ the change.
 * If you have posts written in a certain encoding you are pretty much “stuck” with
   that.
 *  Thread Starter [mythusmage](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mythusmage/)
 * (@mythusmage)
 * [20 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-text-encoding/#post-378936)
 * I know I can change it, the question is, how? What do you do?
 * Do you go to Options-Reading and replace the “UTF-8” in the text field near the
   bottom of the page with the encoding you wish to use? Is that how it’s done?
 * I ask because I have a talent for screwing things up when I don’t really know
   what I’m doing. Better to look like a small fool and do it right, than to do 
   it wrong and look like a total fool.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

The topic ‘Changing Text Encoding’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [changing](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/changing/)
 * [encoding](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/encoding/)
 * [text](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/text/)

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 2 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [mythusmage](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mythusmage/)
 * Last activity: [20 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/changing-text-encoding/#post-378936)
 * Status: not resolved

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