What are the best practices for specifying character encoding in PHP files to ensure proper display in browsers?

When specifying character encoding in PHP files, it is important to ensure that the correct encoding is set to prevent display issues in browsers. The recommended practice is to include the following line at the beginning of your PHP files to specify the character encoding:

```php
header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8');
```

This line tells the browser that the content being served is HTML with UTF-8 character encoding, which is widely supported and can handle a wide range of characters. By setting the character encoding in this way, you can ensure that your PHP files display correctly in browsers.