title: reading .xls files with xlrd
body: <p>When reading data from excel tables with an xlrd package, the output often has a prefix u' or something similiar (like, in one case, it had a \u2013 instead of a '-' character). Why is this and which are the characters i need to look out for, as I'm going to have to parse some information from the spreadsheet cells.</p>
  
  <p>Here's an example:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&gt;&gt;&gt; wb = xlrd.open_workbook('tellimusleht.xls')
  &gt;&gt;&gt; sh = wb.sheet_by_index(0).row_values(5)
  [2.0, u'aken sisseavanev, pakett, aluliist, ilma petekata parem', 552.0, 1729.0, 2.0, u'Sp.Barbados 4*6 \u2013 1 maja ']
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Thank you for your help!</p>