Thank you for the reply. ExifTool never ceases to amaze me with what it can do. I'm still having some difficulty. Here's what I do: 1. make a txt file with all the iptc tags needed, including the line "-iptc:CodedCharacterSet=ESC % G" 2. pass the file to exiftool using the -@ ARGFILE. The resulting jpg's iptc is not in utf-8. Must the txt file be in utf-8 encoding to begin with? If yes, what is the use of CodedCharacterSet?