diff --git a/src/g5505_file_reader.py b/src/g5505_file_reader.py
index 12bc623..572b892 100644
--- a/src/g5505_file_reader.py
+++ b/src/g5505_file_reader.py
@@ -5,7 +5,8 @@ import pandas as pd
 from igor2.binarywave import load as loadibw
 
 import src.g5505_utils as utils
-from src.metadata_review_lib import parse_attribute
+import src.metadata_review_lib as metadata
+#from src.metadata_review_lib import parse_attribute
 
 import yaml
 import h5py
@@ -174,13 +175,8 @@ def read_txt_files_as_dict(filename : str ):
     # https://docs.h5py.org/en/stable/strings.html
 
     if table_preamble:
-        max_length = max(len(item) for item in table_preamble)
-        # Convert the strings to bytes with utf-8 encoding, specifying errors='ignore' to skip characters that cannot be encoded
-        table_preamble_bytes = [item.encode('utf-8', errors='ignore') for item in table_preamble]
-    
-
-        utf8_type = h5py.string_dtype('utf-8', max_length)
-        header_dict["table_preamble"] = np.array(table_preamble_bytes,dtype=utf8_type) 
+        header_dict["table_preamble"] = metadata.convert_string_to_bytes(table_preamble)   
+       
 
    
     # TODO: it does not work with separator as none :(. fix for RGA
@@ -238,7 +234,7 @@ def read_txt_files_as_dict(filename : str ):
                     if not key in numerical_variables:
                         dataset['attributes'].pop(key) # delete key
                     else:
-                        dataset['attributes'][key] = parse_attribute(dataset['attributes'][key])
+                        dataset['attributes'][key] = metadata.parse_attribute(dataset['attributes'][key])
             except ValueError as err:
                 print(err)