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padding:0 0 0 25; height:36px; margin:0; color:#FFFFFF;"> Computers & Writing Systems </div> <div style="padding:0 0 0 0; background-color:#000000; color:#FFFFFF"> <table width='100%'> <tr> <td style="padding: 0 0 0 25px"><a class="GlobalNavLink" href="http://www.sil.org/">SIL HOME</a> | <a class="GlobalNavLink" href="https://software.sil.org/products/">SIL SOFTWARE</a> | <a class="GlobalNavLink" href="/support.html">SUPPORT</a> | <a class="GlobalNavLink" href="https://www.givedirect.org/donate/?cid=13536">DONATE</a> | <a class="GlobalNavLink" href="/privacy-policy.html">PRIVACY POLICY</a> </td> <td align='right' width='20%'> <script async src="https://cse.google.com/cse.js?cx=0760bf09a6bff4b0c"></script><style>.gsc-control-cse {padding: 0.6em; min-width: 10em; width: 18em; max-width: 20em} form.gsc-search-box {display: unset;}</style><div class="gcse-search"></div> </td> </tr> </table> </div> <div style="padding:0 25 25 25"> You are here: <a class='CategoryPath' href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dencoding%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Encoding</a> > <a class='CategoryPath' href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dunicode%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Unicode</a> Short URL: <a href='/catunicode.html'>https://scripts.sil.org/CatUnicode</a>   <h1>Unicode </h1> <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dorthographydev%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Orthography development in relation to Unicode</a> Lorna A. Priest, 2004-11-18 It is out of our scope to give complete guidelines for developing an orthography. However, we would like to give you a process to work through from a Unicode perspective. In designing a writing system, one must decide what symbols will be used and how. Here we list Unicode factors that should be taken into account. <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Diws-chapter04b%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Understanding Unicode™ - II</a> Peter Constable, 2001-06-13 Unicode is a hot topic these days among computer users that work with multilingual text. They know it is important, and they hear it will solve problems, especially for dealing with text involving multiple scripts. They may not know where to go to learn about it, though. Or they may have read a few things about it and perhaps have seen some code charts, but they are at a point at which they need to gain a firmer understanding so that they can start to develop implementations or create content. This introduction is intended to give such people the basic grounding that they need. <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Diws-chapter04a%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Understanding Unicode™ - I</a> Peter Constable, 2001-06-13 Unicode is a hot topic these days among computer users that work with multilingual text. They know it is important, and they hear it will solve problems, especially for dealing with text involving multiple scripts. They may not know where to go to learn about it, though. Or they may have read a few things about it and perhaps have seen some code charts, but they are at a point at which they need to gain a firmer understanding so that they can start to develop implementations or create content. This introduction is intended to give such people the basic grounding that they need. <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dunicodesupport%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Software requirements for different levels of Unicode Support</a> Lorna A. Priest, 2009-11-30 This page provides information on levels of Unicode support provided by different software applications. <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dreversednun_inthebhs%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Reversed Nun in the BHS</a> Joan Wardell, Peter Constable and Christopher Samuel, 2003-11-05 This short discussion of reversed nun explains how it is used in the Ezra SIL fonts. <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dpunctum_inthebhs%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Puncta in the BHS</a> Joan Wardell and Christopher Samuel, 2003-09-30 This short discussion on Puncta dots in biblical Hebrew and Unicode explains how they are used in the Ezra SIL fonts. <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dmeteg_inthebhs%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Meteg and Siluq in the BHS</a> Joan Wardell and Christopher Samuel, 2003-09-30 This short discussion on Meteg in biblical Hebrew explains how to encode various placements with a single codepoint. <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dpsgsymbolsvstus4%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Symbols in Phonetic Symbol Guide 2nd edn. in relation to Unicode 5.1</a> Peter Constable, 2009-01-21 Assesses the symbols listed in the Phonetic Symbol Guide, by Pullum and Ladusaw, giving mappings through Unicode 5.1, and comments on those symbols now supported in Unicode 5.1. <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dencodingfaq%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>How do I encode...?</a> Lorna A. Priest, 2009-03-31 These are questions (and the answers!) people have asked about what the encoding is for various characters in the Unicode standard. This page is also a helpful teaching tool for understanding Unicode. <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dunicode40_sorted%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Unicode 8.0 Latin and Cyrillic characters – sorted</a> Lorna Evans, 2016-04-05 PDF documents with tables of Latin and Cyrillic characters from Unicode 8.0 sorted in Unicode Collation Algorithm default order. Useful for finding characters in Unicode. <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Diws-appendixa%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Mapping codepoints to Unicode encoding forms</a> Peter Constable, 2001-06-13 This appendix describes in detail the mappings from Unicode codepoints to the code unit sequences used in each encoding form. <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Diws-appendixb%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>A review of characters with compatibility decompositions</a> Peter Constable, 2003-06-09 This appendix is intended, therefore, to provide an introduction to this set of characters, which constitute perhaps the least principled elements of the Standard. <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dunicode5quotemirroring%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Why are my quote marks backwards?</a> Bob Hallissy, 2009-03-02 If you work with right-to-left text in Unicode and have certain quote marks in your text, then this article is for you. More specifically: if you suddenly see your smart quotes reverse direction, this article will explain why and what to do (or not do) about it. <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dvaiunicode%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Encoding the Vai Syllabary in Unicode</a> Lorna A. Priest, 2004-12-01 This document is a reference for those who are interested in encoding the Vai Syllabary in Unicode. It contains information compiled during the time SIL was working on the Vai fonts. <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dpcunicodedocs%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>SIL Unicode proposals and other standards-related documents</a> NRSI staff, 2009-01-20 Unicode proposals and other standards-related documents <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dutconvertq2%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Is Unicode ready for you?</a> Albert Bickford, Jim Brase and Lorna Priest, 2007-05-11 This article will help you decide whether Unicode will meet the needs for your given orthography or character needs. <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dthailaoseq%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Sequence Checking in Thai & Lao</a> Martin Hosken, 2008-04-25 With the Unicode character set being so large, it is natural for system and application implementors to want to provide some mechanism for indicating what are clearly illegal sequences of Unicode characters... <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dunicodewordmacrosintro%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Unicode Word Macros Template</a> Peter G. Constable, 2007-11-14 This template provides some VBA macros designed to deal with various Unicode-related issues in Word 97 and later versions. These include providing a means to display the Unicode value of any character, to enter any Unicode character, and to search for any Unicode character. Each of the macros can be accessed from a toolbar that is provided. <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dunicodepagesofinterest%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Unicode Web site pages of interest</a> Peter Constable, 2002-10-06 Links to pages of interest on the Unicode web site <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dcharstories_0140%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Character Stories: U+013F, U+0140 Latin Capital / Small L with Middle Dot</a> Peter Constable, 2004-04-16 The Catalan l-middle dot is usually encoded as a sequence of two characters. U+0140 was added to Unicode for compatibility with ISO 6937. <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dcatunicodecharacterstories%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Unicode Character Stories</a> Peter Constable, 2003-06-19 <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dcharstories_2024%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Character Stories: U+2024 ONE DOT LEADER</a> Peter Constable, 2003-06-02 U+2024 ONE DOT LEADER is a graphic character, whose glyph consists of a small baseline dot, and whose General Category is Po (Other Punctuation). <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dcharstories_02ea%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Character Stories: U+02EA, U+02EB Yin / Yang Departing Tone Marks</a> Peter Constable, 2003-06-19 U+02EB and U+02EA come from the TCA submissions regarding for Minnan and Hakka languages, for use with extended Bopomofo. <a name='130ddfce'></a> <h2>Tutorials</h2> <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dutwtutoriallinks%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Unicode Transition Tutorial Links</a> Lorna A. Priest, 2009-02-17 Because of special character needs, SIL teams have long used custom encoded fonts. This was often the only solution and worked fairly well until newer software began "breaking" our solutions. Unicode obviates the need for custom encoded fonts. The tutorials in this section were developed for helping people in their transition to Unicode. You will find tools for helping you figure out what the Unicode encoding should be, tutorials and tools for actually converting legacy encoded documents to Unicode encoded documents and tutorials to help you with keyboarding issues. <a name='740f5988'></a> <h2>Helpful Utilities</h2> <a href='/cms/scripts/page.php%3Fid%3Dexcelunicodedata%26site_id%3Dnrsi.html'>Unicode Character Properties Excel and LibreOffice Calc spreadsheet</a> Peter Constable, Bob Hallissy, and Bobby de Vos, 2022-10-04 Various files from the Unicode Character Database compiled into a spreadsheet (Excel and LibreOffice Calc) workbook. <a href='http://earthlingsoft.net/UnicodeChecker' target='_blank'><img src='/cms/assets/icons/offsite_link.png'> UnicodeChecker</a> — UnicodeChecker for Mac OS X is an application that displays information for every code point from the Unicode Standard. <a href='http://www.unicode.org/unibook/' target='_blank'><img src='/cms/assets/icons/offsite_link.png'> Unibook</a> — The Unibook Character browser is a small utility for offline viewing of the character charts and character properties for The Unicode Standard. <a href='http://www.ling.upenn.edu/unicode/' target='_blank'><img src='/cms/assets/icons/offsite_link.png'> http://www.ling.upenn.edu/unicode/</a> — Unicode Character Finder is webpage which allows you to search for Unicode characters, view characters by Unicode block and copy characters to the clipboard for use in other applications. <hr> © 2003-2024 <a href='http://www.sil.org/' target='_blank'>SIL International</a>, all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted elsewhere on this page. 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