diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 74df032..756380a 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -38,6 +38,7 @@ dependencies = [
   "youtube-transcript-api",
   "SpeechRecognition",
   "pathvalidate",
+  "charset-normalizer",
 ]
 
 [project.urls]
diff --git a/src/markitdown/_markitdown.py b/src/markitdown/_markitdown.py
index 96997cf..25786f6 100644
--- a/src/markitdown/_markitdown.py
+++ b/src/markitdown/_markitdown.py
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@
 import puremagic
 import requests
 from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
+from charset_normalizer import from_path
 
 # Optional Transcription support
 try:
@@ -161,9 +162,7 @@ def convert(
         elif "text/" not in content_type.lower():
             return None
 
-        text_content = ""
-        with open(local_path, "rt", encoding="utf-8") as fh:
-            text_content = fh.read()
+        text_content = str(from_path(local_path).best())
         return DocumentConverterResult(
             title=None,
             text_content=text_content,