Save sheet to TXT with UTF-8 encoding - vba

Question

I'm working on writing a script for generating reports which require 80 byte line format.
Currently, my script formats all the fields correctly, concatenates them to a single column, and deletes the rest. This concatenated column has spaces separating the fields which can't be dropped when saved. All this is being done on a 64 bit version of Excel 2016 on Windows 10.
How can I make the file save as a UTF-8 encoded text file?

Answer 1

I ended up writing an AHK script that opens Notepad++, changes the encoding, saves the file, and closes it. Not as elegant as I would've hoped, but it gets the job done.

Answer 2

Here's code from that sample spreadsheet modified for Office 64 bit
UTFTest.bas
' Converting a VBA string to an array of bytes in UTF-8 encoding
' $Date: 2015-06-30 10:05Z $
' $Original Author: David Ireland $
' Copyright (C) 2015 DI Management Services Pty Limited
' <http://www.di-mgt.com.au> <http://www.cryptosys.net>
Option Explicit
Option Base 0
''' Extract a set of VBA "Unicode" strings from Excel sheet, encode in UTF-8 and display details
Public Sub ShowStuff()
Dim strData As String
' Plain ASCII
' "abc123"
' U+0061, U+0062, U+0063, U+0031, U+0032, U+0033
' EXCEL: Get value from cell A1
strData = Worksheets("Sheet1").Cells(1, 1)
Debug.Print vbCrLf & Worksheets("Sheet1").Cells(1, 2)
ProcessString (strData)
' Spanish
' LATIN SMALL LETTER[s] [AEIO] WITH ACUTE and SMALL LETTER N WITH TILDE
' U+00E1, U+00E9, U+00ED, U+00F3, U+00F1
' EXCEL: Get value from cell A3
strData = Worksheets("Sheet1").Cells(3, 1)
Debug.Print vbCrLf & Worksheets("Sheet1").Cells(3, 2)
ProcessString (strData)
' Japanese
' "Hello" in Hiragana characters is KO-N-NI-TI-HA (Kon'nichiwa)
' U+3053 (hiragana letter ko), U+3093 (hiragana letter n),
' U+306B (hiragana letter ni), U+3061 (hiragana letter ti),
' and U+306F (hiragana letter ha)
' EXCEL: Get value from cell A5
strData = Worksheets("Sheet1").Cells(5, 1)
Debug.Print vbCrLf & Worksheets("Sheet1").Cells(5, 2)
ProcessString (strData)
' Chinese
' CN=ben (U+672C), C= zhong guo (U+4E2D, U+570B), OU=zong ju (U+7E3D, U+5C40)
' EXCEL: Get value from cell A7
strData = Worksheets("Sheet1").Cells(7, 1)
Debug.Print vbCrLf & Worksheets("Sheet1").Cells(7, 2)
ProcessString (strData)
' Hebrew
' "abc" U+0061, U+0062, U+0063
' SPACE U+0020
' [NB right-to-left order]
' U+05DB HEBREW LETTER KAF
' U+05E9 HEBREW LETTER SHIN
' U+05E8 HEBREW LETTER RESH
' SPACE "f123" U+0066 U+0031 U+0032 U+0033
' EXCEL: Get value from cell A9
strData = Worksheets("Sheet1").Cells(9, 1)
Debug.Print vbCrLf & Worksheets("Sheet1").Cells(9, 2)
ProcessString (strData)
End Sub
Public Function ProcessString(strData As String)
Dim abData() As Byte
Dim strOutput As String
Debug.Print strData ' This should show "?" for non-ANSI characters
strOutput = Utf8BytesFromString(strData)
abData = strOutput
' Reset array width to Actual Number of Bytes
ReDim Preserve abData(Len(strOutput) - 1)
Debug.Print bv_HexFromBytesSp(abData)
Debug.Print "Strlen=" & Len(strData) & " chars; utf8len=" & Len(strOutput) & " bytes"
End Function
''' Returns hex-encoded string from array of bytes (with spaces)
''' E.g. aBytes(&HFE, &HDC, &H80) will return "FE DC 80"
Public Function bv_HexFromBytesSp(aBytes() As Byte) As String
Dim i As Long
If Not IsArray(aBytes) Then
Exit Function
End If
For i = LBound(aBytes) To UBound(aBytes)
If (i > 0) Then bv_HexFromBytesSp = bv_HexFromBytesSp & " "
If aBytes(i) < 16 Then
bv_HexFromBytesSp = bv_HexFromBytesSp & "0" & Hex(aBytes(i))
Else
bv_HexFromBytesSp = bv_HexFromBytesSp & Hex(aBytes(i))
End If
Next
End Function
And Win64 converted API calls
' basUtf8FromString
' Written by David Ireland DI Management Services Pty Limited 2015
' <http://www.di-mgt.com.au> <http://www.cryptosys.net>
Option Explicit
' CodePage constant for UTF-8
Private Const CP_UTF8 = 65001
#If Win64 Then
Private Declare PtrSafe Function GetACP Lib "Kernel32" () As LongPtr
Private Declare PtrSafe Function MultiByteToWideChar Lib "Kernel32" (ByVal CodePage As LongPtr, _
ByVal dwflags As LongPtr, ByVal lpMultiByteStr As LongPtr, ByVal cchMultiByte As LongPtr, _
ByVal lpWideCharStr As LongPtr, ByVal cchWideChar As LongPtr) As LongPtr
Private Declare PtrSafe Function WideCharToMultiByte Lib "Kernel32" (ByVal CodePage As LongPtr, _
ByVal dwflags As LongPtr, ByVal lpWideCharStr As LongPtr, ByVal cchWideChar As LongPtr, _
ByVal lpMultiByteStr As LongPtr, ByVal cchMultiByte As LongPtr, ByVal lpDefaultChar As LongPtr, _
lpUsedDefaultChar As LongPtr) As LongPtr
#Else
Private Declare PtrSafe Function GetACP Lib "Kernel32" () As Long
Private Declare PtrSafe Function MultiByteToWideChar Lib "Kernel32" (ByVal CodePage As Long, _
ByVal dwflags As Long, ByVal lpMultiByteStr As Long, ByVal cchMultiByte As Long, _
ByVal lpWideCharStr As Long, ByVal cchWideChar As Long) As Long
Private Declare PtrSafe Function WideCharToMultiByte Lib "Kernel32" (ByVal CodePage As Long, _
ByVal dwflags As Long, ByVal lpWideCharStr As Long, ByVal cchWideChar As Long, _
ByVal lpMultiByteStr As Long, ByVal cchMultiByte As Long, ByVal lpDefaultChar As Long, _
lpUsedDefaultChar As Long) As Long
#End If
''' Return byte array with VBA "Unicode" string encoded in UTF-8
Public Function Utf8BytesFromString(strInput As String) As String
Dim nBytes As LongPtr
Dim pwz As LongPtr
Dim pwzBuffer As LongPtr
Dim sBuffer As String
' Get length in bytes *including* terminating null
pwz = StrPtr(strInput)
nBytes = WideCharToMultiByte(CP_UTF8, 0&, pwz, -1, 0&, 0&, ByVal 0&, ByVal 0&)
sBuffer = String$(nBytes + 1, vbNullChar)
pwzBuffer = StrPtr(sBuffer)
nBytes = WideCharToMultiByte(CP_UTF8, 0&, pwz, -1, pwzBuffer, Len(sBuffer), ByVal 0&, ByVal 0&)
Utf8BytesFromString = Left$(sBuffer, nBytes - 1)
End Function
As extracted from http://www.di-mgt.com.au/howto-convert-vba-unicode-to-utf8.html