title: Converting an ANSI file with German characters to UTF8
body: <p>I have downloaded some plain text files from a German website but I am not sure what the encoding is. There are no byte markers in the file. I am using a parser that assumes the files are encoded in UTF8, so it is not handling certain accented characters properly (those that fall in the byte range > 127)</p>
  
  <p>I would like to convert it to UTF8 but I am not sure if I will need to know the encoding to properly do this.</p>
  
  <p>The way others have been handling these files is to manually open it in windows notepad and re-saving it in UTF8. This process preserves the accented characters, so I would like to automate this conversion if possible without resorting to windows notepad.</p>
  
  <p>How does Windows Notepad know how to convert it to UTF8 properly?<br>
  How should I convert the file to UTF8 (in Java 6)?</p>