Thank you, that sounds convincing.
I tried simply adding "<:utf8" to the open command in the Spreadsheet:WriteExcel script and it seems to have fixed the problem.
I understand how the same concept applies to input from STDIN in the first script, but I don't understand the actual code. Why is the while loop necessary and what do I put inside the loop? And what's the scope of "binmode STDIN..."? All that follows or just the next instance when STDIN is used? (i.e. do I just include it once at the start of the script or before each input from STDIN? - your post seems to suggest I need to add this line every time I expect input with fancy characters.)
