# How to remove diacritics/accents in C#

Some time ago I had a requirement in an application I was building to store all the data without diacritics/accents for example "á" to "a". Searching on the web I found a [stackoverflow](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/249087/how-do-i-remove-diacritics-accents-from-a-string-in-net) with the answer to my requirement. So I decided to make a blog post about it.

## **Solution for .NET and the .NET Framework**

The solution for these versions works natively without installing any additional libraries.

```csharp
using System.Text;

namespace LatinizeExample
{
    internal class Program
    {
        private static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("crème brûléeĆČ Leoš Janácek Dvořák".Latinize());

            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }

    public static class StringExtensions
    {
        private static readonly Encoding latinizeEncoding = Encoding.GetEncoding("ISO-8859-8");

        public static string Latinize(this string value)
        {
            var strBytes = latinizeEncoding.GetBytes(value);

            return latinizeEncoding.GetString(strBytes);
        }
    }
}
```

An example of its usage is:

```csharp
"crème brûléeĆČ Leoš Janácek Dvořák".Latinize();
```

## **Solution for .NET Core**

For these versions, the [*ISO-8859-8*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_8859-8) encoding is not integrated into the framework. So the solution is to add a Nuget package called *System.Text.Encoding.CodePages*. To install it run the following command:  
Using Package Manager  
`Install-Package System.Text.Encoding.CodePages`  
Using the .NET CLI:  
`dotnet add package System.Text.Encoding.CodePages`

Once installed, you have to register the encodings provider `CodePagesEncodingProvider` at the start of the application. This example is for a Console application:

```csharp
using System.Text;

namespace LatinizeExample
{
    internal class Program
    {
        private static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            //If using .NET Core
            //add the Nuget library System.Text.Encoding.CodePages and then
            //register the provider at the start of the application
            Encoding.RegisterProvider(CodePagesEncodingProvider.Instance);

            Console.WriteLine("crème brûléeĆČ Leoš Janácek Dvořák".Latinize());

            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }

    public static class StringExtensions
    {
        private static readonly Encoding latinizeEncoding = Encoding.GetEncoding("ISO-8859-8");

        public static string Latinize(this string value)
        {
            var strBytes = latinizeEncoding.GetBytes(value);

            return latinizeEncoding.GetString(strBytes);
        }
    }
}
```

## **Resources**

[How to remove or Latinize diacritics/accents in C# (.NET Framework) (](https://gist.github.com/andy01pr/0cda1cc2ed948cff96da86319c69b0f1)[github.com](http://github.com)[)](https://gist.github.com/andy01pr/0cda1cc2ed948cff96da86319c69b0f1)

[ISO/IEC 8859-8](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_8859-8)

[CodePagesEncodingProvider Class](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.text.codepagesencodingprovider?view=net-6.0)

[EncodingInfo Class](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.text.encodinginfo?view=net-6.0)