python - UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x96 in position 35: invalid start byte

Question

I am new to Python, I am trying to read csv file using below script.

Past=pd.read_csv("C:/Users/Admin/Desktop/Python/Past.csv",encoding='utf-8')

But, getting error "UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x96 in position 35: invalid start byte", Please help me to know issue here, I used encoding in script thought it will resolve error.

Answer 1

This happens because you chose the wrong encoding.

Since you are working on a Windows machine, just replacing

Past=pd.read_csv("C:/Users/.../Past.csv",encoding='utf-8') 

with

Past=pd.read_csv("C:/Users/.../Past.csv",encoding='cp1252')

should solve the problem.