I wonder how do I search and replace unicode character xE5" with æ
Note that æ is actually Unicode 00E6 not 00E5.
Search and replace is not the right way to get the correct characters displayed.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
The above states the encoding is utf-8 but the file is actually encoded as ANSI.
You need to convert the file correctly to UTF-8, as follows:
Open Testfile.xlf
File looks like:

Unicode is incorrectly displayed.
Menu > Encoding > Select Encode in ANSI

File looks like:

Unicode is correctly displayed.
Select all file contents (ctrl+a)
Menu > Encoding > Select Convert to UTF-8

Save the File (ctrl+s)
Close and reopen.
File is now correctly encoded as UTF-8 and Unicode characters display correctly.
How can you see the file is actually ANSI?
The cygwin file utility shows this (before and after conversion):
DavidPostill@Hal /f/test
$ file -i Testfile*.xlf
Testfile.xlf: application/xml; charset=iso-8859-1
TestfileConverted.xlf: application/xml; charset=utf-8
Answer from DavidPostill on Stack ExchangeNotepad++ / Discussion / [READ ONLY] Help: Remove specific word in line and all characters after
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I wonder how do I search and replace unicode character xE5" with æ
Note that æ is actually Unicode 00E6 not 00E5.
Search and replace is not the right way to get the correct characters displayed.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
The above states the encoding is utf-8 but the file is actually encoded as ANSI.
You need to convert the file correctly to UTF-8, as follows:
Open Testfile.xlf
File looks like:

Unicode is incorrectly displayed.
Menu > Encoding > Select Encode in ANSI

File looks like:

Unicode is correctly displayed.
Select all file contents (ctrl+a)
Menu > Encoding > Select Convert to UTF-8

Save the File (ctrl+s)
Close and reopen.
File is now correctly encoded as UTF-8 and Unicode characters display correctly.
How can you see the file is actually ANSI?
The cygwin file utility shows this (before and after conversion):
DavidPostill@Hal /f/test
$ file -i Testfile*.xlf
Testfile.xlf: application/xml; charset=iso-8859-1
TestfileConverted.xlf: application/xml; charset=utf-8
If you want to remove UTF-8/unicode chars entirely, click Encoding in NPP and do the following steps, in order:
- Select Encode in UTF-8 (if it's currently in ANSI)
- Select Convert to ANSI (also under encoding)
- Save file
When I do that, all the UTF-8/unicode chars go away.
This expression will search for non-ASCII values:
[^\x00-\x7F]+
Tick off 'Search Mode = Regular expression', and click Find Next.
Source: Regex any ASCII character
Try "Find characters in range..."
In Notepad++, if you go to menu Search → Find characters in range → Non-ASCII Characters (128-255)...

...you can then step through the document to each non-ASCII character.
Be sure to tick off Wrap around if you want to loop in the document for all non-ASCII characters.

When you press Find it selects the character.
Then go to the Edit menu and pick Replace, and the "find" box will be filled with the current selection, which will be the character you found.
Then you can do the rest of the find/replace in the normal dialog.
Use \h that stands for any horizontal space, including nbsp.
- Ctrl+H
- Find what:
\h+$ - Replace with:
LEAVE EMPTY - TICK Wrap around
- SELECT Regular expression
- Replace all
\h+$ matches any number of horizontal spaces at the end of a line.
On Windows nbsp in regular expression term is equal to \xa0
