Changing database encoding with existing data

Question

If I change the encoding of my database, tables and related columns from latin1_swedish_ci (default) to utf8_general_ci to show European and other characters, will that apply to any existing data, or only to new inserts?

I currently have names showing up as Rubén which don't fix themselves even when changing that column's encoding to utf8_general_ci.

Do I have to re-import my data into the database, or can I apply encoding changes to existing data 'in-place'?

Answer 1

This might help:

UPDATE table SET column=CONVERT(CONVERT(column USING binary) USING utf8) WHERE id=123;

Source: http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2007/12/18/fixing-column-encoding-mess-in-mysql/