When the text fields are written with a non-Latin alphabet it is not possible to use the dbf-file because that file format does not support UTF-16. The work-around is to copy from ArcMap to Excel which in ArcMap 9.3.1 was possible to do with keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl + A. In ArcMap 10.1 these keyboard shortcuts do not work in the Attribute table and therefore the menus must be used.
In the dbf-file the non-Latin characters are not readable
- Open the Attribute table in ArcMap.
In the Attribute table in ArcMap 10.1 the non-Latin characters looks OK
- Click on the Table button and choose Select All in the drop-down menu.
- Hold down Shift, right-click on the first row's grab handle and choose Copy Selected in the drop-down menu.
- Paste into an Excel file
How the final result looks like
