[Plugin: Contact Form 7 to Database Extension] problem with RTL languages in the database/csv file

omri i have deleted the old version from my wordpress system (so that it will delete all tables) and re installed it… wrote somthing in contact form 7 and exported the file via this plugin and everything works great in hebrew… i think you need to try again, it’s not conceivable that it’s working for me and not for you…

I tried your example letters for debug and it works for me. Also seems to work for roycegracie. Checking my config, I also have CF7 2.4.1.

Do you see the correct characters on the web page view of the data? Is it only the export that does not look right?

We should first verify that the input data is being saved as UTF-8. Look in your MySql and verify the fields in the wp_CF7DBPlugin_SUBMITS table are character set UTF8. If not, run the “alter table” command posted above, make a new form submission and export again.

ok,
i deleted the cf7dbe plugin,
delete wp_CF7DBPlugin_SUBMITS table,
installed the cf7dbe plugin again
filled a form in my site, anf nothing. same problem again.

are there any other tabes needed to be deleted?
roycegracie, what did you do inorder to make the upgrade work?
thanks,

i had the contact form 7 plugin on my site (version 2.3.1), i had deleted the Contact Form 7 to DB Extension plugin from the control panel (so it will delete all tables) and installed it again directly from the “add new plugin” in the admin panel…

did that couple of times, same problem.
(cf7: version 2.3.1)

-deactivate the plugin
-delete the plugin
-install the plugin
-activate the plugin
-write a mail from cf7
-export to file + open
-gibrish

what browser are using?
any suggestions?
thanks,

hi msimpson,

tried to delete the plugin,create a new form and write my details in the form.
i see the correct letters on screen.
when i press “export to csv” i open the excel file and see it in a wrong way. (in the db the letters are fine, encoding is utf8_general_ci)

roycegracie,
did you also export the file and opened it in excel?

advice?
thanks

yes i did… to excel on office 2003

OK, the the problem is definitely not in the DB, but is only related to the generation of the CVS file / Excel’s ability to correctly read the file. I’m not finding much help on this on the internet.

omrison & roycegracie: I would like to know from both which version of Excel you are using, which version of Windows, and your system local/default language. I’m working on Excel 2010 and Windows 7 in US English.

FYI: to code the export, I referenced this link:
https://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/ABAP/Excel+files+-+CSV+format#Excelfiles-CSVformat-HowtocreateafilefromoutsideExcel and followed this guidance to make a UTF-8 BOM CSV file:

Else, if the file starts with the bytes EF BB BF (UTF-8 Byte Order Mark, aka UTF-8 BOM), it is identified as being a text file in UTF-8 encoding

I don’t know what kind of Windows or Excel setting could affect the interpretation of the file format…anyone have any ideas?

Aside: I experimented with UTF-16LE BOM and although I saw correct characters, Excel did not parse the delimiters, so everything was crammed into column A.

i’m using windows XP professional hebrew edition and office 2003.
the computer defauld is hebrew but my exel is an english version…

actually when i text this from my other computer who has a diffarent excel 2003 version but same windows xp i get the hebrew in jibrish in the excel…

Hi msimpson,
first of all thanks for all of your help. !!
second, i did some more testing.
when i save the file and opens it with notepad++ it comes out great.
the encoding is UTF-8 which means the the plugin saves it correctly as a file.
i’m using win XP with office 2003 sp3 (11.8169.8172)

OK, I have a new tack on this: Download this version, and you will have an option to export to UTF-16LE. Try that and let me know if it works.

https://plugin.michael-simpson.com/download/contact-form-7-to-database-extension.1.2.1.zip

ok !!
it saves the file in with strange signs but the data itself opens correctly. (×?×?×? ×?×?×aר×a.csv)
Great progress.

waiting for the official version.

I can’t seem to resolve the issue of the file name. Since this isn’t critical, I released 1.2.1 with the changes I have.

I set the file name as the name of the form + .csv. I tried encoding the name of the download file in the Content-Disposition header according to RFC 2231 but browsers are ignoring it. It is not clear to me if browsers don’t support it or I’m not encoding/formatting that correctly.

msimpson,
thanks for your help.
great plugin.
any road map?

No road map. I just coded this in my free time to help with a site for a non-profit and figured I’m solving a common problem so I might as well make it generally available. I’m open to suggestions to make it generally more useful. But I don’t have lot of time to spend on it. (I do bursts of a lot of work on it, then take a long break).