diff --git a/doc/ghnightlynotes.md b/doc/ghnightlynotes.md
index f0697f19a..8c4dbd12d 100644
--- a/doc/ghnightlynotes.md
+++ b/doc/ghnightlynotes.md
@@ -101,14 +101,11 @@ In a powershell window (press `WINDOWS-R`, `powershell`, `ENTER`):
     hledger --version; hledger-ui --version; hledger-web --version    # should show refs/tags/1.42.99; if not, check why: where.exe hledger
     ```
 
-3. Ensure a default journal file exists, and without a problematic encoding. 
+3. Ensure a default journal file exists, and without a problematic encoding (I'm not sure if/why "ascii" was needed here).
 This will allow you to start hledger-web by double-clicking on its icon if you wish.
     ```
     out-file -append -encoding ascii $HOME/.hledger.journal
     ```
-    (I'm not sure why "ascii" is needed here - hledger likes utf8 and understands utf8 BOM headers,
-    but the state of [our unicode support on Windows](https://github.com/simonmichael/hledger/issues?q=is%3Aissue+label%3A%22platform%3A+windows%22+label%3Ai18n)
-    is really unknown, your feedback is welcome.)
 
 </xdetails>
 <xdetails>
diff --git a/hledger/Hledger/Cli/Commands/Balance.md b/hledger/Hledger/Cli/Commands/Balance.md
index 6815e4b21..0d8991780 100644
--- a/hledger/Hledger/Cli/Commands/Balance.md
+++ b/hledger/Hledger/Cli/Commands/Balance.md
@@ -882,8 +882,8 @@ $ hledger -f examples/bcexample.hledger bal assets:us:etrade -3 -Y -O csv --layo
 ### Balance report output
 
 As noted in [Output format](#output-format),
-if you choose HTML output (by using `-O html` or `-o somefile.html`), it will use the UTF-8 text encoding,
-And you can create a `hledger.css` file in the same directory to customise the report's appearance.
+if you choose HTML output (by using `-O html` or `-o somefile.html`),
+you can create a `hledger.css` file in the same directory to customise the report's appearance.
 
 The HTML and [FODS] output formats can generate hyperlinks to a `hledger-web` register view for each account and period.
 E.g. if your `hledger-web` server is reachable at `http://localhost:5000`
diff --git a/hledger/hledger.m4.md b/hledger/hledger.m4.md
index bfd3aebe4..3e6f2f816 100644
--- a/hledger/hledger.m4.md
+++ b/hledger/hledger.m4.md
@@ -430,15 +430,12 @@ forms, etc.)
 
 This requires a well-configured environment. Here are some tips:
 
-- A system locale must be configured, and it must be one that can
-  decode the characters being used.
-  In bash, you can set a locale like this: `export LANG=en_US.UTF-8`.
-  There are some more details in [Troubleshooting](#troubleshooting).
-  This step is essential - without it, hledger will quit on encountering
-  a non-ascii character (as with all GHC-compiled programs).
+- A system locale must be configured, which can decode the characters being used.
+  This is essential - see [Text encoding](#text-encoding).
 
 - Your terminal software (eg Terminal.app, iTerm, CMD.exe, xterm..)  must support unicode.
-  On Windows, you may need to use Windows Terminal and/or enable UTF-8 support.
+  On Windows, you may need to use Windows Terminal and/or enable UTF-8 support system-wide -
+  see [Install: Locale](install.md#locale).
 
 - The terminal must be using a font which includes the required unicode glyphs.
 
@@ -3272,14 +3269,12 @@ See also ["Working with CSV > Reading files specified by rule"](#reading-files-s
 encoding ENCODING
 ```
 
-hledger normally expects non-ascii text to be UTF8-encoded.
+hledger normally expects non-ascii text to be using the system locale's text encoding.
 If you need to read CSV files which have some other encoding,
 you can do it by adding `encoding ENCODING` to your CSV rules.
 Eg: `encoding iso-8859-1`.
 
-The following encodings are supported
-(some alternate names and spellings also work, but [inconsistently](https://github.com/dmwit/encoding/issues/28))
-:
+The following encodings are supported:
 
 `ascii`,
 `utf-8`,
@@ -7000,8 +6995,9 @@ Some known issues and limitations:
 The need to precede add-on command options with `--` when invoked from hledger is awkward.
 (See Command options, Constructing command lines.)
 
-A UTF-8-aware system locale must be configured to work with non-ascii data.
-(See Unicode characters, Troubleshooting.)
+A system locale with a text encoding must be configured to work with non-ascii data.
+hledger should try UTF-8 if no encoding is configured.
+(See Text encoding, Troubleshooting.)
 
 On Microsoft Windows, depending whether you are running in a CMD window or a Cygwin/MSYS/Mintty window
 and how you installed hledger,