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I always use UTF-8 with my Typo3 installations even if it’s not needed in the first version of the Web site because translation is a requirement often arises at a later time.

The way I create my new, empty Typo3 4.2 installation that fully supports UTF-8:

• Create the database with

  CREATE DATABASE tt_new_site DEFAULT CHARSET 'UTF-8';

  GRANT ALL ON tt_new_site.* TO 'new_site'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';

• Unzip the dummy.zip from typo3.org into the new installation’s directory
• Create correct typo3_src symlink
• Set permissions correctly (I made a script for this)
• Create typo3conf/ENABLE_INSTALL_TOOL
• Do necessary Web server setup
• Go to http://new_site/
• Do not use the 1-2-3 setup, but go to the Install Tool directly
• In “Basic Configuration”, set database name + username, password, host, site name, encryption key, [GFX][gdlib_png], [GFX][TTFdpi]=96
• In “Update Wizard”, “upgrade” to the newest Typo3 version. This will do nothing other than setting compatibility mode to Typo3 4.2 in localconf.php.
• In “All Configuration”, set [BE][forceCharset]=utf8, [SYS][no_pconnect]=1.
• In “Database Analyser”, choose “COMPARE” and let Typo3 create the tables. Because we have specified UTF-8 as the database’s default character set and also set forceCharset correctly, the tables will be created with the UTF-8 character set. Then “Create admin user” (don’t use admin as the user name for security reasons).
• Log in to the back end, do the things to remove the 3 warnings (comment the $TYPO3_CONF_VARS[‘BE’][‘installToolPassword’] line in typo3conf/localconf.php, remove typo3conf/ENABLE_INSTALL_TOOL and run the reference check).
• Now you’ve got a fresh Typo3 installation with all basic settings done, including UTF-8 support.

Some extensions have problems with UTF-8. For instance, I run into problems with qcom_html_cleaner, don’t use it until the UTF-8 problems are fixed.