Windows encodings - Revision history

Jsummers: Edited a statement that might not be so true anymore

2025-11-06T12:45:29Z

Edited a statement that might not be so true anymore

Dan Tobias at 02:38, 21 May 2019

2019-05-21T02:38:29Z

Jsummers: /* Links */

2018-01-28T14:56:35Z

‎Links

Jsummers: /* List of encodings */

2018-01-28T14:52:35Z

‎List of encodings

Jsummers at 17:46, 27 January 2018

2018-01-27T17:46:09Z

Jsummers: /* List of encodings */

2018-01-27T17:35:01Z

‎List of encodings

Jsummers at 17:32, 27 January 2018

2018-01-27T17:32:56Z

Jsummers at 17:39, 25 January 2018

2018-01-25T17:39:25Z

Jsummers at 17:10, 25 January 2018

2018-01-25T17:10:21Z

Jsummers: Created page with "{{FormatInfo |formattype=electronic |subcat=Character encoding }} '''Windows encodings''' refers to the various legacy character encodings used by the non-Unicode Microsof..."

2018-01-25T17:05:10Z

Created page with "{{FormatInfo |formattype=electronic |subcat=Character encoding }} '''Windows encodings''' refers to the various legacy character encodings used by the non-Unicode Microsof..."

New page

{{FormatInfo
|formattype=electronic
|subcat=Character encoding
}}
'''Windows encodings''' refers to the various legacy character encodings used by the non-[[Unicode]] Microsoft Windows API, and most non-Unicode-aware Windows applications. (GUI applications, anyway. Windows ''console'' applications default to using the [[MS-DOS encodings]] in many cases.)

In Windows jargon, these encodings are misleadingly called "ANSI", or in some cases (also somewhat misleadingly), "multi-byte" encodings.

All too many file formats use one of these encodings, with no reliable way to determine which one.

== List of encodings ==
* [[Windows 1252]] (ISO 8859-1 plus additional characters)
* [[Windows 1255]] (Hebrew)
* [[Windows 1256]] (Arabic, Farsi, Urdu)
* [[Windows 1257]] (Baltic Rim)
* [[Windows 1258]] (Vietnamese)

[[Category:Microsoft]]
[[Category:Windows]]

@@ Line 10: / Line 10: @@
 The term is somewhat ambiguous. In the strictest sense, it refers to the so-called "ANSI" encodings such as [[Windows 1252]], but it can also encompass many of the even-more-legacy [[MS-DOS encodings]] (a.k.a. "OEM" encodings) supported by Windows, such as [[CP437]].
-The native encoding of Windows NT-based systems is [[UTF-16]] (or [[UCS-2]] for very old systems), but that is usually not considered to be a "Windows encoding". Sufficiently modern versions of Windows even support [[UTF-8]] as a "legacy" encoding, though it is preferable to use the Unicode API instead.
+The native encoding of Windows NT-based systems is [[UTF-16]] (or [[UCS-2]] for very old systems), but that is usually not considered to be a "Windows encoding". Sufficiently modern versions of Windows even support various ways of using [[UTF-8]] as a "legacy" encoding (as a systemwide locale setting, per-process using a manifest<ref>[https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/apps/design/globalizing/use-utf8-code-page Microsoft Learn: Use UTF-8 code pages in Windows apps]</ref>, or for C library functions, via setlocale<ref>[https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/c-runtime-library/reference/setlocale-wsetlocale?view=msvc-170 Microsoft Learn: setlocale, _wsetlocale]</ref>).
 == List of encodings ==
@@ Line 27: / Line 27: @@
 * [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd317756(v=vs.85).aspx Windows Dev Center: Code Page Identifiers]
 * [[Wikipedia: Windows code page]]
 [[Category:Microsoft]]
 [[Category:Windows]]

@@ Line 24: / Line 24: @@
 == Links ==
 * [https://unicode.org/Public/MAPPINGS/VENDORS/MICSFT/WINDOWS/ Unicode mappings]
 * [[Wikipedia: Windows code page]]
 [[Category:Microsoft]]
 [[Category:Windows]]

@@ Line 12: / Line 12: @@
 == List of encodings ==
-* [[Windows 1250]] (Central European)
+* [[Windows 1250]] (Central European) - [http://www.kreativekorp.com/charset/encoding.php?name=CP1250 code table]
-* [[Windows 1251]] (Cyrillic)
+* [[Windows 1251]] (Cyrillic) - [http://www.kreativekorp.com/charset/encoding.php?name=CP1251 code table]
-* [[Windows 1252]] (Western European; ISO 8859-1 plus additional characters)
+* [[Windows 1252]] (Western European; ISO 8859-1 plus additional characters) - [http://www.kreativekorp.com/charset/encoding.php?name=CP1252 code table]
-* [[Windows 1253]] (Greek)
+* [[Windows 1253]] (Greek) - [http://www.kreativekorp.com/charset/encoding.php?name=CP1253 code table]
-* [[Windows 1254]] (Turkish)
+* [[Windows 1254]] (Turkish) - [http://www.kreativekorp.com/charset/encoding.php?name=CP1254 code table]
-* [[Windows 1255]] (Hebrew)
+* [[Windows 1255]] (Hebrew) - [http://www.kreativekorp.com/charset/encoding.php?name=CP1255 code table]
-* [[Windows 1256]] (Arabic, Farsi, Urdu)
+* [[Windows 1256]] (Arabic, Farsi, Urdu) - [http://www.kreativekorp.com/charset/encoding.php?name=CP1256 code table]
-* [[Windows 1257]] (Baltic Rim)
+* [[Windows 1257]] (Baltic Rim) - [http://www.kreativekorp.com/charset/encoding.php?name=CP1257 code table]
-* [[Windows 1258]] (Vietnamese)
+* [[Windows 1258]] (Vietnamese) - [http://www.kreativekorp.com/charset/encoding.php?name=CP1258 code table]
 == Links ==

@@ Line 9: / Line 9: @@
 The term is somewhat ambiguous. In the strictest sense, it refers to the so-called "ANSI" encodings such as [[Windows 1252]], but it can also encompass many of the even-more-legacy [[MS-DOS encodings]] (a.k.a. "OEM" encodings) supported by Windows, such as [[CP437]].
-The native encoding of Windows NT-based systems is [[UTF-16]] (or [[UCS-2]] for very old systems), but that is usually not considered to be a "Windows encoding". Sufficiently modern versions of Windows even support [[UTF-8]] as a "legacy" encoding, though it preferable to use the Unicode API instead.
+The native encoding of Windows NT-based systems is [[UTF-16]] (or [[UCS-2]] for very old systems), but that is usually not considered to be a "Windows encoding". Sufficiently modern versions of Windows even support [[UTF-8]] as a "legacy" encoding, though it is preferable to use the Unicode API instead.
 == List of encodings ==

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 |subcat=Character encoding
 }}
-'''Windows encodings''' refers to the various legacy character encodings used by the non-[[Unicode]] Microsoft Windows API, and most non-Unicode-aware Windows applications. (GUI applications, anyway. Windows ''console'' applications default to using the [[MS-DOS encodings]] in many cases.)
+'''Windows encodings''' (or '''Windows code pages''') refers to the various legacy character encodings used by the non-[[Unicode]] Microsoft Windows API, and most non-Unicode-aware Windows applications.
-In Windows jargon, these encodings are misleadingly called "ANSI". Together with the [[MS-DOS encodings]], they are sometimes called the "multi-byte" encodings.
+In many contexts, it means "whatever the user's default non-Unicode encoding happens to be", which is bad from a portability perspective. All too many file formats use one of these encodings, with no reliable way to determine which one.
-All too many file formats use one of these encodings, with no reliable way to determine which one.
+The term is somewhat ambiguous. In the strictest sense, it refers to the so-called "ANSI" encodings such as [[Windows 1252]], but it can also encompass many of the even-more-legacy [[MS-DOS encodings]] (a.k.a. "OEM" encodings) supported by Windows, such as [[CP437]].
 == List of encodings ==
@@ Line 18: / Line 20: @@
 == Links ==
 * [https://unicode.org/Public/MAPPINGS/VENDORS/MICSFT/WINDOWS/ Unicode mappings]
 [[Category:Microsoft]]
 [[Category:Windows]]