What are the best practices for converting character sets between CP1252 and UTF-8 when dealing with Excel files in PHP?

When dealing with Excel files in PHP that use different character sets like CP1252 and UTF-8, it is important to convert between the two to ensure proper encoding and display of special characters. One way to do this is by using PHP's mb_convert_encoding function to convert the strings from CP1252 to UTF-8 before processing them.

// Open the Excel file
$spreadsheet = \PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\IOFactory::load('example.xlsx');

// Get the active sheet
$sheet = $spreadsheet->getActiveSheet();

// Loop through rows and columns
foreach ($sheet->getRowIterator() as $row) {
    foreach ($row->getCellIterator() as $cell) {
        // Get the cell value in CP1252
        $value = $cell->getValue();

        // Convert the value from CP1252 to UTF-8
        $utf8Value = mb_convert_encoding($value, 'UTF-8', 'CP1252');

        // Use $utf8Value for further processing
    }
}