Japanese Text Scrambled on emails from iPad

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Japanese Text Scrambled on emails from iPad

I purchased an iPad for my father, who primarily types his emails in Japanese using the Japanese keyboard function on his iPad. I was hoping it would replace his old PC laptop when traveling for emails. I also purchased a Mac Mini 2010 model for him to sync with.

Recently, he has been getting responses from a couple people he has emailed who claim that emails coming from his iPad written in Japanese are completely scrambled ("MOJIBAKE" is the term in Japanese). I didn't believe him initially but he showed me examples of what was happening.

The text became like this...

"魴憺」シ縺輔ｓ縲・/div>

縺薙・蜑阪�∬ソ比コ九ｒ縺励◆繧画枚蟄怜喧縺代＠縺ヲ縺励∪縺・∪縺励◆縺後�√�郡ent from my iPad縲阪ｒ縺ィ繧翫∪縺励◆縲・/div>
繧ゅ＠縺九＠縺溘ｉ縲√◎繧後′蝠城。後□縺」縺溘°繧ら衍繧後∪縺帙ｓ縺ョ縺ァ縲∬ゥヲ縺励↓繧ゅ≧荳�蠎ヲ霑比ソ。
縺輔○縺ヲ縺・◆縺�縺阪∪縺励◆縲・ hope you can read this. Please tell me if you can read this.
隱ュ繧√ｋ縺九←縺・°縺顔衍繧峨○縺上□縺輔＞縲ゅｈ繧阪＠縺上�・/span>"

The recipient who cannot read Japanese emails coming from my father's iPad is on a PC running Windows XP and using "Live Mail". In this case, it might be a problem between iPad and "Live Mail" because he has emailed back and forth in Japanese from a PC (PC to PC) with the same person with no issues. Apparently his Japanese friends have claimed Apple computers and iPads, etc. have never fully supported Japanese. I am hoping this is not the case.

It was my hope that my father would adopt the iPad for his email use, but since this incident has happened more than once, he has vowed not to use his iPad for serious correspondence. I am trying now to find out exactly what is causing this problem and how to set up my dad's iPad so that his Japanese text can be read on any PC machine without issues. My father heard also that the "sent from iPad" text (in Japanese) was the culprit in changing all the characters in the past. Not sure what to believe. I'm told other people have run into this but can't find any answers online (I am not the most seasoned board searcher though). Any help would be greatly appreciated. I felt I was so close to weening my family off of Windows XP but if I can't figure this out, they will still be very hesitant to embrace Apple products when doing serious work and emails in Japanese.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Mar 9, 2011 7:50 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 11, 2017 10:48 PM in response to djanye

As mentioned in Tom's answer, this is an encoding problem. I get it a bunch too. Especially when getting mail from older folks with iPads.

I suspect it's an older bug that's been fixed, but the users might not know how to upgrade.

You might still be able to read it but getting the original source of the message ("Show original" in gmail) and re-encoding it yourself.

On an example message I have the original shows a section like this

--Apple-Mail-1C3D49EF-E49D-4600-83B6-6253A6B8BC01

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

=1B$B:#F|$O!":...

Where the body is actually iso-2022, but the content type says us-ascii.

What I've done to work around it is:

1. Install the iconv ruby library with gem install iconv (This will probably require the gcc from xcode, possibly sudo)

2. copy the original text

3. run pbpaste | ruby -riconv -e "puts Iconv.conv('utf-8', 'iso-2022-jp', STDIN.read.unpack('M')[0])"

Not the prettiest solution but it can help if you want to read a mis-encoded message from someone without getting into a tech support discussion.

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Answer 2

Tom Gewecke

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122,934 points

Mar 10, 2011 5:37 AM in response to djanye

Usually what you describe is caused by encoding mismatches. There are a couple possible encodings for use in Japanese text (e.g. UTF-8, ISO-2022-JP, Shift-JIS), and iOS devices do not yet let the sender choose among them to satisfy the requirements of the recipient system. Recipients often do have the ability to choose, but don't know how. I believe some mail systems run by MS also frequently botch things.

I think the only option for your father is to switch his OS language to Japanese (or to English if already in Japanese) and see if anything improves after that.

Apple computers running the full OS X normally have no problem adjusting encodings if necessary to send Japanese that can be read at the other end.

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Answer 3

djanye Author

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Mar 12, 2011 3:13 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Thanks so much for the response!

His iPad is set up to be Japanese by default. So I'll have him switch it to English with an international keyboard to see if it improves.

Is it possible that the new iPad software update that just came out would help?

The Mac Mini I bought for him is running in English with an additional international keyboard for Japanese.

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Answer 4

Tom Gewecke

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122,934 points

Mar 13, 2011 9:12 AM in response to djanye

Is it possible that the new iPad software update that just came out would help?

It's very unlikely that this update would add ability to select encodings in Mail.

The Mac Mini I bought for him is running in English with an additional international keyboard for Japanese.

When using Mail on a Mac Mini, you can select encodings via the menu Message > Text Encoding.

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Answer 5

Mar 13, 2011 6:33 PM in response to djanye

I have a similar (yet opposite) problem. Emails received with Japanese text in the body are scrambled when viewed within iOS. Changing the native language did not help. The strange thing is that the message is readable in the 2 line preview but not in the main pane. If the message is readable in the preview, why not in the main view?

I am using gmail synced via exchange and having the same problem on iPad and iPod Touch running the most recent version of iOS. The text is readable when viewed in safari through gmail's web interface.

Thanks for any help you can share.

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Answer 6

Tom Gewecke

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Mar 13, 2011 7:10 PM in response to sguberman

I don't think there is anything you can do besides report the problem to apple via their feedback channel.

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Answer 7

djanye Author

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Mar 13, 2011 9:07 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

I will send apple a report if I knew where to send this kind of complaint. Any leads on where I can go?

As a follow up, my father was running his iPad in English OS with a Japanese keyboard. He since changed his iOS to Japanese and still ran into the same issues. Sending Japanese from the Mac Mini had no problems but the iOS thing is a pretty big bummer.

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Answer 8

Tom Gewecke

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Mar 14, 2011 6:16 AM in response to djanye

http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipad.html

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Answer 9

djanye Author

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Mar 27, 2011 2:30 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

My Dad just wrote to me that he found a peculiar workaround for his iPad. By inserting Greek characters into his signature, his emails now don't cause this scrambled "MOJIBAKE" problem from his iPad.

+"I do not really know how I solved the problem of Mojibake with the Greek letter of love (αγάπη).+

+The person who could not read my email from iPad is using PC computer, XP operation system and using "Window Live Mail" as email program.+

+I understand Mac use Unicode (UTF-8) and Japanese uses ISO-2022-JP. That is the problem.+

+Hikari (my cousin) told me to insert picture character such as "Smile face" which is two or more bytes character, but as soon as I paste the picture, it turns into code. So, Hikari suggested to use Korean letters. Then, I thought I could use the Greek words that I know.+

+I pasted the word "with αγάπη" in my signature and I sent to the parson who can't read. Then, he replied "I can read this"+

+I am now searching ISO-2022-JP character to insert. I understand that should reduce this problem greatly."+

He also informed me that emails from his Gmail on the Mac Mini do not cause MOJIBAKE but my mother's Yahoo.co.jp web mail causes this same MOJIBAKE problem.

Any thoughts on why my father's solution worked?

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Answer 10

Tom Gewecke

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Mar 27, 2011 4:18 PM in response to djanye

Any thoughts on why my father's solution worked?

Adding greek to Japanese should normally force the email client to send with UTF-8 charset. You can check by just looking at one of those emails in Mail via View > Message > Raw Source and see what the charset header says. It would be interesting to know...

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Answer 11

djanye Author

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Mar 27, 2011 5:26 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Here is what the charset from the iPad (with Greek) from Gmail said...

+"Content-type: text/plain; charset=utf-8+
+X-Mailer: iPad Mail (8G4)+
+Message-id: <7D25BC79-3A46-44E4-AF8F-99594407C71D@gmail.com>+
+Date: Sun, 27 Mar 2011 17:18:33 -0700"+

So the UTF-8 being forced is helping the iPad render Japanese correctly.

But is there a reason why Mac is sticking to UTF-8 rather than supporting the other character sets? The Japanese community seems to think that Mac, like PC, should accommodate ISO-2022-JP and other character sets that Japanese telephones use.

The issue with the Mac Mini OS X was using Yahoo.co.jp webmail in a Safari browser in an English OS using a Japanese keyboard. By switching the whole Mac OS X to Japanese, this solved the problem so far (emails were no longer scrambled). But is there a way to keep the English OS and not have this issue of "MOJIBAKE" or scrambled Japanese characters? I hate constantly hearing that this issue does not happen for Windows users.

Japanese companies apparently (Nikon being one of them) do not approve Macs for their business use because of this problem. Regardless of if this problem is true or not, this is the perception that Apple doesn't care about the Japanese market.

Any thoughts on either the iPad / Greek issue and the way to resolve Mac OS X?

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Answer 12

Tom Gewecke

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Mar 27, 2011 5:34 PM in response to djanye

But is there a reason why Mac is sticking to UTF-8 rather than supporting the other character sets? The Japanese community seems to think that Mac, like PC, should accommodate ISO-2022-JP and other character sets that Japanese telephones use.

When using the full OS X in laptop/desktop macs you can send in whatever you want -- ISO-2020-JP, EUC, or Windows charsets. But the iOS used in the iPad/iPhone/iPod is much simplified and does not yet offer the user the ability to switch encodings.

But is there a way to keep the English OS and not have this issue of "MOJIBAKE" or scrambled Japanese characters?

There are no guarantees with webmail, because you have no control over what the provider does to your encoding. But Safari has a View > Text Encoding menu where you can try to select utf or several japanese encodings.

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Answer 13

djanye Author

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Mar 27, 2011 8:43 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Thanks, Tom. I see that Text Encoding option now in Safari but I can't seem to select more than one. Is it possible to turn on all the Japanese options?

I imagine that changing the OS to Japanese solves the problem because it turns all of these on? If I can get all of the encodings in Japanese on while having an English OS, that would be ideal.

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Answer 14

Tom Gewecke

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Mar 27, 2011 9:01 PM in response to djanye

I can't seem to select more than one. Is it possible to turn on all the Japanese options?

I don't understand what you mean. You can only have one encoding at a time for any text. Can you not select any one of the 4 on the list?

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Answer 15

djanye Author

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Mar 27, 2011 9:06 PM in response to Tom Gewecke

Sorry if I was confusing.

I was wondering if you could choose more than 1 encoding on Safari for Mac OS X, but I believe you answered my question in your last response to that by saying I could only choose one at a time.

I am trying to find out why the yahoo.jp.co webmail works well with all encodings when the Mac OS is switched to Japanese (no scrambling of text in that way) when the English OS with a Japanese keyboard scrambles Japanese texts of different encodings.

It was my hope that I could somehow turn on all encodings so that I could keep the OS in English while being able to write and read all Japanese encodings as if my OS were all in Japanese.

I hope that's clearer? Is there a way for this to happen?

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