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When I use Quick Look in the Finder on a text file, it'll inevitably render garbled because it treats it as MacRoman.

Can I do something to make it always use UTF-8, or, even better, be ever so slightly smart about encoding detection?

<rant>
Maybe not all my text files are UTF-8. But I'm damn sure not a single one is MacRoman. Some people at Apple are still using OS 9 I guess.
</rant>

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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It's a file attribute problem. See here, at the end, two links explaining it: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1479441&tstart=120

Basically, if you execute this: xattr -w com.apple.TextEncoding 'UTF-8;134217984' yourfile.txt your file will appear correctly in QuickLook.

In my opinion it has to do more with the editor and the way it saves the file than with QuickLook.

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  • 1
    In my opinion, the OS defaulting to MacRoman while the world has moved on is asinine.
    – kch
    Aug 3, 2010 at 11:49
  • I guess now I need a way to run that for every text file I create. fsevents and Folder Actions come to mind. Would be nice if TextMate had post-save hooks too.
    – kch
    Aug 3, 2010 at 11:52
  • Why don't you just save it as UTF-8 in TextMate?
    – mipadi
    Aug 3, 2010 at 14:20
  • I do, that's indeed the problem. QuickLook thinks it's MacRoman anyway. Hence the garbling.
    – kch
    Aug 3, 2010 at 15:01
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I wrote a little script that taps fsevents and sets the xattr when a file is saved within my home.

I also reveal the file's extension, which is unrelated to this question.

Check out the script here: http://gist.github.com/506382

The script must be constantly running, so a launchd job file would be most welcome.

Also, see my comment about using ~/.CFUserTextEncoding here.

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  • Speaking of launchd, WatchPaths and QueueDirectories may do the job without my needing to tap fsevents myself.
    – kch
    Aug 3, 2010 at 14:37

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