Unable to read french characters

Question

Im trying to reach data from an excel (using the Apache software's excel reader code) but my java code is not recognizing words like "D�cor". It is replacing '�' with '?'(All my columns are in English , it is just a couple of data entires like D�cor or caf� that bother me) . I use FileInputStream to read data-i cannot change that as it is required input for apache excel file reader. I thought java uses Unicode by default, but when i printed
(new OutputStreamWriter(new ByteArrayOutputStream())).getEncoding()
i got 'ASCII' as output. Could anyone help me out with this please?
-Aarthi

Answer 1

Just to add to it: this is the code I'm using
FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(fileName);
Workbook wb = new Workbook(fis);
Sheet sh = wb.getSheetAt(0);
Row row =null;
String strDesc = null;
for (int i = (firstRow + 1); i < lastRow; i++)
row = sh.getRow(i);                
// line below is unable to read D�cor
strDesc = row.getCell((short) col1).getStringCellValue();
System.out.println("Desc -> "      +strDesc );
}