How do I remove  from the beginning of a file?

Question

I have a CSS file that looks fine when I open it using gedit, but when it\'s read by PHP (to merge all the CSS files into one), this CSS has the following characters prepend

Answer 1

In Notepad++, choose the "Encoding" menu, then "Encode in UTF-8 without BOM". Then save.

See Stack Overflow question How to make Notepad to save text in UTF-8 without BOM?.