20001015
... and now to something completely different:

Internationalizing...

... with UNICODE

MS Windows
MS Windows CE
MS Office 2000
WAP
Notes on Unicode, multibyte-encodings and national code pages a demonstration of Unicode is here
Java and Internationalization
Links for Languages

Classic literature: Chinese/French

Sign Guestbook - your thoughts, tips, links
View Guestbook - do have a look at it. Various notes on Windows CE Internationalization. Some kind of FAQ.
_______

When I started this page in 1998, some companies made the strategic decision not to go with Unicode for operating systems or low level engines. By now, it's obvious that this was a mistake.

MS Windows

IE 5 for i18n - any language
Chinese/Japanese/Korean on Windows
NT 4
Windows 2000

any language: IE 5

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Japanese, Korean and Chinese for Windows

will enable display of these languages in IE and other applications
Input Method Editors Japanese, Korean, Chinese Traditional and Simplified for IE 4.0, also work in Word/Outlook/Frontpage of Office 2000, MS Outlook 98 for HTML-messages, in Outlook Express for text and HTML, and in MSN Messenger.
Unicode based, it will accept any language's input. Global IMEs are supported. For example, you can chat via the internet using Japanese and German at the same time on a Western Windows 9x or NT system. I have not tested it's support for right-to-left text. ICQ didn't have this capability as of the start of 1999, I doubt it has it now.
EasyWord97, it's free for personal use
Word97 Chinese Input also free
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General notes on NT 4

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Windows 2000 (fka NT 5.0)

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MS Windows CE

A few hints for programmers
Please view the Guestbook for additional notes on Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew
If you own a CE 2.11 or better device, have a quick look at this demo page! For CE 2.0, you'll have to use a software like CE-Star for viewing.

CE 2.11 H/PC-Pro
general i18n features of CE 2.0 - all languages
Chinese on CE
Japanese on CE
i18n problems of CE
(non-i18n) Tips & Tricks for CE

Windows CE 2.11 - H/PC-Pro

Based on the CE 2.0 features, 2.11 has important improvements and bug fixes for i18n issues.

SP-1 for CE 2.11 adds important features

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Windows CE 2.0 internationalization in general

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Languages that can be displayed in CE 2.0

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Chinese for Windows CE

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Japanese for Windows CE (mostly 2.0) H/PCs

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i18n problems of CE: Problems in using languages...

... with ActiveSync 3.1

Unfortunately, version 3.1 retains most bugs of version 3.0. Most notably, Unicode filename support is still broken.

... with ActiveSync 3.0

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... with CE 3.0 / WindowsPowered on the PocketPC

I recently acquired a Compaq iPAQ 3630, unfortunately I had to send it back for repairs after just a few trial runs. This section will be updated as soon as I get the PPC back.

... for CE 2.11 -- see above

... on CE 2.0

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(non-i18n) Tips & Tricks for CE

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Microsoft Office 2000

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WAP

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Notes on Unicode, multibyte-encodings and national code pages

Unicode
Editors
Unicode vs. Traditional encoding methods
Problems
The future - mapping 48.000 Han-characters, and more

Unicode

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Editors

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Unicode vs. the traditional encodings (multi-byte and national code pages)

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Problems: Difficulties with Unicode and the traditional encodings

Incompatibilities
A Windows centric view

Incompatibilities?

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A Windows centric view

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The future - or how to map 48.000 Chinese chars, and more

Unicode is normally understood as denoting the Unicode standard of version 2.0 (2.1 is supported by newer software. 3.0 is finalized by now.) and/or UCS-2 encoding. UCS-2 has space for about 65.000 different characters, which is sufficient for most purposes. However, there do exist more than 48.000 different Chinese characters but currently in UCS-2 of Unicode 2.1 only more than 21.000 Han-characters (Chinese caracters used for Chinese, Japanese, Korean) are defined. To my knowledge, a space of about 30,000 characters is reserved for Han characters. Several (largely unofficial) standards in academic and military use try to map all 48.000 Han characters, the most common being CCCII.

Unicode does offer sufficient space to accomodate all Han-characters in its UCS-4 coding method. UCS-2 is a subset of UCS-4, that is adding so far undefined characters to the standard won't change the definitions that have been fixed in Unicode 2.0. It is desirable to expand the existing Unicode standard using UCS-4 as coding method to encompass the Han characters that do not fit into UCS-2. The definition process is currently under way. Update: The characters of the Kangxi Dictionary (康熙辭典) have as of 03/2000 been assigned codepoints in the 32byte character space, and will probably be part of the next major Unicode version. As well as other characters, eg. the Japanese dentist's symbols (in 16byte Unicode).

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Java and Internationalization

From the perspective of a MS Windows user

Java is fully Unicode 2.0 based since jdk 1.1...

Java is supposedly the Holy Grail of Internationalization, but reality is different. If you want to use it for internationalized stuff then either you rely on Sun's JDK and can't use important text methods or you rely on MS' VM, have less trouble and make a MS-only Java program. Sorry, Sun.
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This Page

hits since 98070220

Note

First, thanks to the individuals and companies mentioned here that made low cost internationalization possible.

How were these (UTF-8 encoded) pages done? MS FrontPage on Windows 2000 with some source editing. Checked in IE 5. Have used NT Notepad and IE5 for the same purpose before.
Internationalization and languages are my personal interest: This is just a homepage with no guarantee for anything. It may be full of errors. All trademarks on this page are acknowledged as the property of their respective owner. TrueType in this context refers to the Microsoft TrueType version. I don't know a thing about the Mac/Adobe version

copyright Rafael Humpert, 1998-2000 - mail: rhumpert @ iname.com.
Try to catch me with MSN Messenger: Rafael_Humpert @ hotmail.com