convert UCS-2 encoded text with 16-bit characters into UTF-8, on the command line with sfk for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Raspberry Pi.

- download the free Swiss File Knife Base from Sourceforge.
- open the Windows CMD command line, Mac OS X Terminal or Linux shell.
- OS X : type mv sfk-mac-64.exe sfk and chmod +x sfk then ./sfk
- Linux: type mv sfk-linux-64.exe sfk    and chmod +x sfk then ./sfk
  OS X and Linux syntax may differ, check the help within the tool.

sfk wtou in.txt

convert UCS-2 encoded text with 16-bit characters
into 8-bit characters encoded as UTF-8.

options
  -tofile x  write output to file x
  -nobom     write no BOM header
  -codes     print character codes
  -be        big endian input
  -le        little endian input

command chaining support
  iwtou accepts binary input from
  previous commands like xed.

aliases
  sfk ucstoutf    same as wtou
  sfk iucstoutf   same as iwtou

see also
  sfk utow   UTF-8 to wide chars
  sfk wtoa   wide chars to Ansi

examples
  sfk wtou in.txt
    if in.txt contains wide character data
    print this as UTF-8 text to terminal.
  sfk wtou in.txt -tofile out.txt
    write UTF-8 output to out.txt.
  sfk list mydir .txt +perline "wtou $qtext"
    if all .txt files in mydir use wide chars
    then print them to terminal as UTF-8.

read more about all sfk functions here.