Why does Õ turn into Ã• in Portuguese text?

The text is UTF-8 but got decoded as Windows-1252. UTF-8 stores Õ as C3 95, and Windows-1252 reads those two bytes as Ã and •, so a heading like INFORMAÇÕES comes out as INFORMAÃ‡Ã•ES. If the original is gone and all you have is the garbled string, Python can undo it: `s.encode('cp1252').decode('utf-8')`. Run that once, and only on text you know was mangled this way.

Is Õ a separate letter in Estonian?

Yes. In Estonian õ is a letter of its own with its own vowel sound, and the alphabet places it after W rather than next to O. That matters when you sort. A default sort files Õ with O, and a raw code point sort puts it after Ä, and neither matches Estonian order. Sort Estonian names with an Estonian collation such as et_EE.

Why does tabulate fancy_grid raise UnicodeEncodeError for '\u2552'?

Python is encoding the table as Windows-1252, which has no ╒, and ╒ is the very first character of a fancy_grid table. When writing to a file, open it with `encoding='utf-8'`. If the error comes from print() while output is redirected to a file, set the environment variable PYTHONUTF8=1 instead. Or switch to tablefmt="grid", which draws the same layout in plain ASCII.

Why does my DOS box show ÕÍÍÍ¸ instead of ╒═══╕?

The file holds code page 437 bytes and is being read as Windows-1252. There 213 is Õ, 205 is Í and 184 is ¸, so the top edge of a double-topped box turns into accented letters, and the │ sides (179) show up as ³. Convert the file once instead of patching it by hand: `iconv -f CP437 -t UTF-8 old.txt > new.txt`, then open the result as UTF-8.

ASCII 213

Uppercase O with tildeBox top-left corner, double horizontal

ASCII 213 is Õ on Windows and ╒ in old DOS.

Õ (Capital O with Tilde) is byte 213 in Windows-1252, Unicode U+00D5. Estonian treats it as a vowel of its own and starts words with it, as in Õun (apple), and Portuguese needs it in capitals like NAÇÕES and LIÇÕES. UTF-8 stores it as C3 95, and 95 is the bullet • in Windows-1252, so mangled Portuguese reads NAÃ‡Ã•ES, with what looks like a list bullet in the middle of a word. The HTML entity is Õ.

╒ (Single Down, Double Right) is byte 213 in code page 437, the original IBM PC character set, and maps to Unicode U+2552. It's the top-left corner of a box with double top and bottom edges and single sides: ═ (205) runs right and │ (179) drops down. It opens every fancy_grid table from Python's tabulate. Code page 850 gave this byte to the Turkish dotless ı, so a frame drawn for 437 and read as 850 starts with what looks like a stray lowercase i: ı═══. In UTF-8 it's E2 95 92, and the HTML entity is &boxdR;.

Latin LetterBox Drawing

Technical Details

Code Example

</>

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    /* On Windows (code page 1252) byte 213 is Õ.
       Modern terminals expect UTF-8, so print the code point, not the byte. */
    printf("\u00D5\n");   /* UTF-8: C3 95 */

    unsigned char b = 213;         /* the raw Windows-1252 byte */
    printf("%d 0x%02X\n", b, b);    /* 213 0xD5 */
    return 0;
}

Code Example

</>

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    /* Byte 213 is ╒ only on a console using code page 437
       (chcp 437 on Windows, or DOSBox). On a UTF-8 terminal the
       lone byte 0xD5 is invalid and prints as garbage, often �. */
    putchar(213);

    /* char is signed on x86, so a plain char holding 0xD5 is -43.
       Use unsigned char when you compare or index by byte value. */
    char c = (char)213;
    unsigned char u = 213;
    printf("\n%d %d\n", c, u);   /* -43 213 */

    /* Portable: print the Unicode character as UTF-8 instead. */
    printf("\u2552\n");          /* E2 95 92 */
    return 0;
}

How to Type It

Windows: Hold Alt and type 0213 on the numeric keypad, with Num Lock on. The leading zero picks the Windows code page. No numeric keypad? In Word, type 00D5 and press Alt+X.
Mac: Press Option+N, then Shift+O.
Linux: In GNOME, or any desktop running IBus, press Ctrl+Shift+U, type d5, then Space. With a Compose key set up, press Compose, tilde, O.
Phone: Tap Shift, then long-press O and pick Õ.

How to Type It

Windows: Hold Alt and type 213 on the numeric keypad, with no leading zero. US PCs insert ╒, but PCs set to code page 850, common in Western Europe, insert ı. No numeric keypad? In Word, type 2552 and press Alt+X.
Mac: Press Control+Command+Space to open the Character Viewer, then search for "box drawings down single and right double".
Linux: In GNOME, or any desktop running IBus, press Ctrl+Shift+U, type 2552, then Space.
Phone: Phone keyboards have no key for it. Tap the character at the top of this page to copy it.

Frequently Asked Questions

The text is UTF-8 but got decoded as Windows-1252. UTF-8 stores Õ as C3 95, and Windows-1252 reads those two bytes as Ã and •, so a heading like INFORMAÇÕES comes out as INFORMAÃ‡Ã•ES. If the original is gone and all you have is the garbled string, Python can undo it: `s.encode('cp1252').decode('utf-8')`. Run that once, and only on text you know was mangled this way.
Yes. In Estonian õ is a letter of its own with its own vowel sound, and the alphabet places it after W rather than next to O. That matters when you sort. A default sort files Õ with O, and a raw code point sort puts it after Ä, and neither matches Estonian order. Sort Estonian names with an Estonian collation such as et_EE.
The file holds code page 437 bytes and is being read as Windows-1252. There 213 is Õ, 205 is Í and 184 is ¸, so the top edge of a double-topped box turns into accented letters, and the │ sides (179) show up as ³. Convert the file once instead of patching it by hand: `iconv -f CP437 -t UTF-8 old.txt > new.txt`, then open the result as UTF-8.

Frequently Asked Questions

Python is encoding the table as Windows-1252, which has no ╒, and ╒ is the very first character of a fancy_grid table. When writing to a file, open it with `encoding='utf-8'`. If the error comes from print() while output is redirected to a file, set the environment variable PYTHONUTF8=1 instead. Or switch to tablefmt="grid", which draws the same layout in plain ASCII.
The file holds code page 437 bytes and is being read as Windows-1252. There 213 is Õ, 205 is Í and 184 is ¸, so the top edge of a double-topped box turns into accented letters, and the │ sides (179) show up as ³. Convert the file once instead of patching it by hand: `iconv -f CP437 -t UTF-8 old.txt > new.txt`, then open the result as UTF-8.

ASCII 213

Uppercase O with tildeBox top-left corner, double horizontal

ASCII 213 is Õ on Windows and ╒ in old DOS.

Latin Letter

Box Drawing

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {

/* On Windows (code page 1252) byte 213 is Õ.

Modern terminals expect UTF-8, so print the code point, not the byte. */

printf("\u00D5\n"); /* UTF-8: C3 95 */

unsigned char b = 213; /* the raw Windows-1252 byte */

printf("%d 0x%02X\n", b, b); /* 213 0xD5 */

return 0;

}

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {

/* Byte 213 is ╒ only on a console using code page 437

(chcp 437 on Windows, or DOSBox). On a UTF-8 terminal the

lone byte 0xD5 is invalid and prints as garbage, often �. */

putchar(213);

/* char is signed on x86, so a plain char holding 0xD5 is -43.

Use unsigned char when you compare or index by byte value. */

char c = (char)213;

unsigned char u = 213;

printf("\n%d %d\n", c, u); /* -43 213 */

/* Portable: print the Unicode character as UTF-8 instead. */

printf("\u2552\n"); /* E2 95 92 */

return 0;

}