# UnicodeEncodeError: 'charmap' codec can't encode character '\u2192'

**Code:** `UnicodeEncodeError` · **Category:** Python · **Seen on:** Python

Python tried to write text in an encoding that can’t represent some characters — common in Windows consoles and files opened without encoding.

## Meaning

Windows console/legacy code pages (cp1252, charmap) can’t print many Unicode characters. Writing files without encoding= uses the platform default.

## Common causes

- Printing Unicode to a Windows console
- open(..., "w") without encoding="utf-8"
- Old ASCII-only locale on Linux servers (LANG=C)

## Quick fix

1. Open files with encoding="utf-8"
2. Set PYTHONIOENCODING=utf-8 or PYTHONUTF8=1
3. Use a UTF-8 terminal / chcp 65001

## Detailed fix by platform

### Windows

1. `set PYTHONUTF8=1` (or set it in system environment variables)

## How to diagnose

1. **Destination** — Console or file?
2. **Encoding** — Which codec is named?

---
Source: [WhatIsMyError](https://whatismyerror.com/errors/python/unicodeencodeerror)