For some reason both calls give me
Function argument value, type, or count is invalid (Error 11)
when running.

Maybe because osheet.Cells(i,j).value is not proper value already as it is shown in watch window or tooltip as "???????"

>>I converted pdf table to excel format ( Office 2010 ) with ABBYY pdf transformer and try to generate xml file via Excel automation.
>>
>>All Russian and Belorussian names properly seen in Excel
>>РУБИНОВ Анатолий Николаевич
>>Рубінаў Анатоль Мікалаевіч
>>
>>But after this statement
>>
>>lcell_value = osheet.Cells(i,j ).value
>>
>>in Foxpro they are just sequences of "?". I tried to play with strconv , but didn't find a proper combination. My understanding in Excel it is UTF-16, and in xml we should end up with utf-8.
>
>Did you try ?
>

>?strconv(osheet.Cells(i,j ).value,2,1251,1)
>?strconv(osheet.Cells(i,j ).value,2,204,2)
>

>
>MartinaJ