Before exporting did you set the NLS_LANG to AL32UTF8 And you should set the NLS_LANG to WE8MSWIN1252 before importing If you use data pump for export and import then there is no need to set any NLS_LANG. The utility does the conversion for you. Here is a little test we ran similar to yours http://ksadba.wordpress.com/2008/07/13/data-pump-arabic-character-set-conver sion/ Hazem From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Amir Gheibi Sent: Friday, November 14, 2008 10:14 AM To: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Data Transfer and different Charactersets Hi I have inherited an Oracle 10g (10.2.0) with the following charcterset information installed in a HP-UX server: NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET: AL16UTF16 NLS_CHARACTERSET: AL32UTF8 I also have another Oracle 10g installed in my own laptop (windows XP) with the following charcterset information: NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET: AL16UTF16 NLS_CHARACTERSET: WE8MSWIN1252 I'm trying to use "imp" and "exp" to export data from a tablespace in my own database and import it into the server database. But the import process terminates because of the difference between server database's charcterset and the export file's. Is there a way to export or import data with different character set or convert the characterset on the fly? I'm connecting to this server using VPN from my client. And I should say that I'm not a DBA. I'm maintaining this server temporarily. Any help or idea is appreciated.