Hi,

It's "easier" to parse unicode excel files with this decoding via perl 5.8.X or higher.

    open(FH, "<:raw:encoding(UTF16-LE):utf8", $File_UTF_MS);
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With this line you order excel to save files in UTF16-LE.

    $Excel->{DisplayAlerts} = 'False';
    $xlWorkBook->SaveAs( $File_UTF_MS, $xlConst->{'xlUnicodeText'});
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With this line you write in UTF8.

    open(FH, ">utf8", $File_UTF8);
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This because our dear MS friends make use of UTF-16.
Cf. http://blogs.msdn.com/brettsh/archive/2006/06/07/620986.aspx
Therefore you need to convert from raw to utf16 to utf8.
Kind regards.
ddn123456