script to save file as unicode

This could work for you, but notice that it'll grab every file in the current folder:

Get-ChildItem | Foreach-Object { $c = (Get-Content $_); `Set-Content -Encoding UTF8 $c -Path ($_.name + "u") }

Same thing using aliases for brevity:

gci | %{ $c = (gc $_); sc -Encoding UTF8 $c -Path ($_.name + "u") }

Steven Murawski suggests using Out-File instead. The differences between both cmdlets are the following:

• Out-File will attempt to format the input it receives.
• Out-File's default encoding is Unicode-based, whereas Set-Content uses the system's default.

Here's an example assuming the file test.txt doesn't exist in either case:

PS> [system.string] | Out-File test.txtPS> Get-Content test.txtIsPublic IsSerial Name                                     BaseType          -------- -------- ----                                     --------          True     True     String                                   System.Object     # test.txt encoding is Unicode-based with BOM

PS> [system.string] | Set-Content test.txtPS> Get-Content test.txtSystem.String# test.txt encoding is "ANSI" (Windows character set)

In fact, if you don't need any specific Unicode encoding, you could as well do the following to convert a text file to Unicode:

PS> Get-Content sourceASCII.txt > targetUnicode.txt

Out-File is a "redirection operator with optional parameters" of sorts.

The easiest way would be Get-Content 'path/to/text/file' | out-file 'name/of/file'.

Out-File has an -encoding parameter, the default of which is Unicode.

If you wanted to script a batch of them, you could do something like

$files = get-childitem 'directory/of/text/files' foreach ($file in $files) {  get-content $file | out-file $file.fullname}

Use the System.IO.StreamReader(To read the file contents) class together with the System.Text.Encoding.Encoding(To create the Encoder object which does the encoding) base class.