Unicode issues

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Q: How do I check the encoding that the MDS uses?

A1: Type createmdsinfo at the console. A file called MDS_Information.txt will be created in /tmp on Linux systems and in the home directory of the MDS on Windows systems. This file includes the encoding.

A2: See the information in the event.txt logfile.

A3: Watch the output as you start the MDS.


Q: I am facing problems when reading Unicode characters in my browser! What are the possible reasons for this?

If you are unable to read some Unicode characters in your browser, it may be because your system is not properly configured. Here are some basic instructions for doing that. There are two basic steps:

a) Install fonts that cover the characters you need
b) Configure your browser to use them.

Fonts
Note:
Ideally, you will install fonts that are tuned for the scripts that you particularly need, then also install a full Unicode font as a backup. The following describes how to get fonts for different platforms. You can also find other fonts at Useful Resources.

Windows
For Windows 2000, getting additional languages installed can be done as follows: Choose Start > Settings > Control Panel > Regional Options. In the General tab, set all the languages you may want to display, the more your set, the more you will be able to process multilingual data through all your applications, including your browser. This adds fonts as well as system support for these languages.

Tuned fonts: Go to Start > Settings > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs > Windows Setup > Components > Multilanguage Support > Details and check the languages you want. Also useful is to go to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com and install the Explorer language packs, which add the fonts to your system.

Full fonts: If you have Microsoft Office 2000, you can get the Arial Unicode MS font, which is the most complete. To get it, insert the Office CD, and do a custom install. Choose Add or Remove Features. Click the (+) next to Office Tools, then International Support, then the Universal Font icon, and choose the installation option you want.

Unix/Linux
A range of quite comprehensive fixed-width Unicode on-screen pixel fonts for X11/Unix users can be downloaded from http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs-fonts.html
or directly as http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/download/ucs-fonts.tar.gz
Check the included README file for detailed installation instructions.

An earlier version of these fonts is already automatically installed when you use the XFree86 4.0 X server, which is the one commonly used under Linux.

The Mozilla, Firefox and Netscape 6 web browsers can make use of these fonts directly and are highly recommended for anyone interested in utilizing Unicode web pages (make sure to use the very latest version though). Just select the "-misc-fixed-iso10646-1" font for the "Unicode" category in the "Edit|Preferences|Fonts" setup menu. The Netscape 4.x browsers cannot handle 16-bit Unicode fonts at all. However, the above package contains scripts to generate 8-bit fonts in all ISO 8859 variants, which Netscape 4.x will then use to display those Unicode characters that are also found in ISO 8859.

Browsers
You should make sure that you are using the most recent version of whatever browser you use, and have installed the fonts you want. The following then describes how to configure browsers for different fonts.

Internet Explorer
IE is fairly smart about picking tuned fonts for different characters. To set your font as the default for a given block of characters, choose Tools > Internet Options > Fonts, then select the fonts.

Monospace Fonts: IE uses Web page font to mean variable-width, and Plain text font to mean fixed width. Unfortunately, IE will not let you pick a variable-width font in the Plain text font box. That means in practice that you simply can't view most Unicode characters in fixed-width.

Netscape Navigator
You will need to tell NN which fonts to use for which encodings. To set your font as the default for a given block of characters, choose Edit > Preferences > Fonts. Then for each encoding you are likely to use, pick the appropriate fonts for the Variable Width and Fixed Width fonts. It is particularly important to set default fonts for Unicode. These fonts will be used when NN encounters documents encoded in a Unicode variant.

Monospace Fonts: NN lets you select any font for fixed-width content. This allows you to use a variable-width font in the Fixed Width box. While you lose the alignment of the characters, at least you can read the content.

Further Information
The following link from Alan Wood's Unicode Resources also offers helpful information on specific topics.

For setting up browsers on different operating systems for Multilingual and Unicode Support: http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/browsers.html


Q: Which browsers support UTF-8?

Please read your browsers support manual to find out whether it supports UTF-8 encoding or not.


Q: My browser still doesn't show any Unicode characters, what is wrong?

If you followed the steps as described in the answer of the previous questions and still can't see Unicode characters properly then you have to set the encoding of the browser. The following describes how to configure browsers for UTF-8 encoding.

Encoding setting in Internet Explorer:
Here the encoding setting procedure for Internet Explorer 5.00.3700.1000 is given. For another version if this procedure doesn't work then please read the documentation for that version.

Open IE à Go to View menu à Go to encoding à Select Unicode (UTF-8)

Encoding setting in Netscape Navigator:
Here the encoding setting procedure for Netscape Navigator 6/6.01 is given. For another version if this procedure doesn't work then please read the documentation for that version.

·	Open Netscape Navigator

·	Go to Edit menu

·	Go to Preference

·	In the Preference window you will find Category list at the left side of the window. Form this list expand Navigator category and select Language.

·	In the right side of the Preference window you will get the properties of selected language. Then at the bottom you will get Character Encoding selection option.

·	Select Unicode (UTF-8) as character encode.

Q: How to configure Outlook express to show utf-8 encoded data?

If your Unicode characters do not show properly in Outlook Express, try the following settings:

·	Go to Tools and select Options from the menu.

·	Click on 'Read' tab

·	Then click Fonts button

·	Select Unicode from the font settings list, Arial Unicode MS from proportional font, and Unicode (UTF-8) from encoding drop down menu.