Encryped XLS form with gibberish text response

Good afternoon,

I’m working with an encrypted XLS form in KoboCollect, and use ODK Briefcase for decrpytion. For MPC questions all data decrypts perfectly. The only problem is with the text responses, as Arabic text is still gibberish after decryption:
Knipsel

I already checked my Java software is up to date.

Does anyone know how I can solve this problem?

Thanks in advance!

1 Like

The issue is likely with the program you are using to view the CSV.

If you are using Excel, it's terrible at UTF-8. Use these instructions or try LibreOffice. If that doesn't work, email me the CSV at yanokwa@nafundi.com and I'm glad to take a quick look.

Dear Yanokwa,
Thank you very much! It was indeed the problem of UTF-8. It is solved now by importing the CSV data in Excel, while ensuring UTF-8 unicode is selected in the 'file origin' drop-down.

Apologies for commenting on an old post, but I was wondering if you are also plagued by line breaks in Arabic texts when importing the data. I’ve been fixing these line breaks manually, but I would very much like to find a way to automate this process, as it’s quite time consuming.

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated!

Hi @pax_hossain
We're glad you're here. When you get a chance, please introduce yourself on this forum thread. I'd also encourage you to add a real picture as your avatar because it helps build community!

could you provide more details?
What exactly are you doing?
What versions of our tools do you use?
Maybe you could attach your form as a sample?

Thanks for your reply, @Grzesiek2010! I was hoping it was a common issue that did not require much additional explanation. As this does not seem to be the case, I created a new topic. I hope I have answered your questions there!