[netbeans] How to change file encoding in NetBeans?

I want to change encoding of file in NetBeans IDE (ver 6.9.1), let's say from ANSII to UTF-8. How can I do that?

EDIT: I will be more precise. I don't want to change the default encoding in NetBeans. I want to only change encoding of the currently edited file.

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This link answer your question: http://wiki.netbeans.org/FaqI18nProjectEncoding

You can change the sources encoding or runtime encoding.


On project explorer, right click on the project, Properties -> General -> Encoding. This will allow you to choose the encoding per project.


The NetBeans documentation merely states a hierarchy for FileEncodingQuery (FEQ), suggesting that you can set encoding on a per-file basis:

Just for reference, this is the wiki-page regarding project-wide settings:


Just try to set the Projects Encoding to "UTF-8" and copy the file (which is encoded in iso) in the same Project (and if you dont need the old file just delete it) - now the copied file will be as UTF-8 - maybe this will help you :)


There is an old Bugreport concerning this issue.


Go to etc folder in Netbeans home --> open netbeans.conf file and add on netbeans_default_options following line:

-J-Dfile.encoding=UTF-8

Restart Netbeans and it should be in UTF-8

To check go to help --> about and check System: Windows Vista version 6.0 running on x86; UTF-8; nl_NL (nb)


Yes, you can change the encoding of a specific file (or see what it has) with this Encoding Support plugin. With this plugin you will be able to handle the different encodings of your files without problems.

Now it is in version 1.4.0 for NetBeans 8.2 and I use it in Windows 10 several time ago.

The operation is very simple, in the status line you can see the encoding of the open file, and from there you can define its new encoding.

Encoding Support running on Windows 10