cannot make -charset UTF8 work consistently

[mkornelix]

I use exiftool embedded in another application (Linux/Fotoxx).
I am unable to get UTF8 text to display properly in -keywords and -city
I have tried -charset IPTC=UTF8. This fixes -keywords but -city is usually screwed up.
I expect UTF8 in almost all text keywords (description, title, keywords, city/country ...)
and I hope for a recipe to make it work for both EXIF and IPTC metadata.

I use  "exiftool -stay_open True -@ %s; exit"
within the app, where %s is the input file (pipe)

example:


$: exiftool -city ~/Desktop/*.jpg
======== /home/mico/Desktop/04.jpg
City                            : Rügen
======== /home/mico/Desktop/07.jpg
City                            : Rügen


$: exiftool -charset IPTC=UTF8 -city ~/Desktop/*.jpg
======== /home/mico/Desktop/04.jpg
City                            : Rügen
======== /home/mico/Desktop/07.jpg
City                            : R�gen

[Phil Harvey]

IPTC character sets are problematic.  In the past, both Mac and Windows would write in the system character set, with no way to tell what that was.  So there is no way to read IPTC consistently.

- Phil