Salesforce Data Loader and Workbench.Developerforce.com: My Missing Manual

I need to work with many non-English letters and encounter some issues with Data Loader and Workbench from Salesforce.com. Therefore, I create this post to keep related notes.

Using Data Loader

When download data from Salesforce.com using Data Loader, be sure to enable UTF-8 options or all UTF-8 characters becomes question marks except English letters.

From [Settings] → [Settings], enable both following UTF-8 options:

1. Read all CSVs with UTF-8 encoding
2. Write all CSVs with UTF-8 encoding

Using Workbench.Developerforce.com

When download data from Salesforce.com using Workbench with Bulk CSV option, it is encoded in UTF-8.

Don’t Use Excel to Edit

When you export to CSV from Excel, all UTF-8 characters becomes question marks except English letters. There is no option to export to UTF-8 in non-English Excel.

Process with Google Sheet

I use Google Sheet to process and download as CSV. Everything seems fine.

Issue with Google Sheet CSV

I do encounter issue while using Google Sheet to export to CSV once. The tip is to use Notepad++ to change Encoding to Encode in UTF-8-BOM and save. Then use Data Loader again to process without any problems.

CSV Error for Numbers of Columns and Header Not Match

While uploading a CSV file, I saw an error message like: The number of data columns (x) exceeds the number of columns in the header (y). I have check several times and found there is nothing wrong with my CSV.

Finally, I read Apex Data Loader Error: Number of Data Columns exceeds… and realize that I may only select only one of the two when there is empty spaces in data:

1. Allow comma as a CSV delimiter
2. Allow Tab as a CSV delimiter

Reference

1. Notepad++
2. Salesforce: Apex Data Loader Error: Number of Data Columns exceeds…
3. Salesforce: Data Loader
4. Salesforce: Workbench
5. Salesforce Stack Exchange: Difference between data loader and workbench

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