GitHub Pages not displaying charsets correctly - how to set by repo?

[AnitaYCheng]

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I'm archiving some HTML pages for a friend, and I have some that are encoded in Big5 for traditional Chinese characters. The charset is defined in the meta tag, and the character display correctly in the GitHub File viewer (see https://github.com/AnitaYCheng/e-chinese.org/blob/main/index.html as an example). However, GitHub Pages doesn't display them correctly: https://anitacheng.com/e-chinese.org/

Is there some kind of limitation with charsets in GitHub Pages? Or is it somehow thrown off by my apex custom domain?

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[omercikan]

Hi there! 👋

The problem you’re seeing with your Traditional Chinese Big5-encoded HTML files on GitHub Pages happens because of encoding differences. Here’s what’s going on:

Why it happens

• GitHub’s file viewer can read <meta charset="Big5"> correctly, so the files look fine when browsing the repo.
• GitHub Pages, however, serves files assuming UTF-8 by default. That’s why Big5-encoded characters often appear broken (like �) when viewed on the site.

What you can do

1. Convert your files to UTF-8 (easiest way)

   • Change the HTML meta tag to:

     <meta charset="UTF-8">

   • Convert the actual files from Big5 to UTF-8. You can do this with:
     • VS Code or Notepad++
     • Or via command line:

       iconv -f BIG5 -t UTF-8 input.html -o output.html

2. Use a different hosting option

   • If you really need to keep Big5, GitHub Pages isn’t the best fit.
   • Consider Netlify, Vercel, or your own server where you can set the proper HTTP charset headers.

Summary

GitHub Pages doesn’t fully support Big5 or other legacy encodings. Converting your files to UTF-8 is usually the simplest and most reliable way to make sure everything displays correctly.

[AnitaYCheng]

Thanks for the explanation - I did a test with the homepage (saving the HTML with UTF-8 encoding in VS Code) and it worked!