===== Convert PostgreSQL database from SQL_ASCII to UTF8 ===== Login to your server as "root" and install the 'Recode' tool. In Linux Debian you do this by typing: apt-get install recode Then switch to the "postgres" account: su postgres Now start by creating a dump of your SQL_ASCII database: pg_dump SQL_ASCII_database_name > SQL_ASCII_database_dump.sql Next check content of your file by typing: file SQL_ASCII_database_dump.sql You should get the following output: SQL_ASCII_database_dump.sql: ISO-8859 text Then you convert your ISO-8859 or CP1250 file to UTF8 by typing these two commands: cat SQL_ASCII_database_dump.sql | recode iso-8859-1..u8 > UTF8_database_dump.sql iconv -f CP1250 -t UTF-8 -c UTF8_database_dump.sql Check the result by typing: file UTF8_database_dump.sql You should now get the following output: UTF8_database_dump.sql: UTF-8 Unicode text Now open the new UTF8_database_dump.sql file with your favourite editor and change the line: SET client_encoding = 'SQL_ASCII'; to: SET client_encoding = 'UTF8'; Create a new database: createdb new_UTF8_database_name And import the UTF8_database_dump.sql psql new_UTF8_database_name < UTF8_database_dump.sql That's it!