A Unicode text editor can create, edit, and display text in various alphabets, including non-Latin ones. It stores information in an international standard called Unicode. The Unicode Consortium coordinates the development of the standard, which can accommodate over a million distinct characters. A Unicode text editor allows multiple languages to be included in the same document and can import files in various formats. It is available commercially or through open source and is supported by most modern web browsers, computer software applications, and operating systems.
A Unicode text editor is computer software that can be used to create, edit, or display text in a variety of alphabets. Stores information in Unicode, an evolving international standard for representing human languages. A Unicode text editor is especially useful with non-Latin alphabets, including those that read right-to-left. Unicode editors are used around the world to create documents, web page content, and text for software applications in many languages.
The Unicode standard was first proposed in the late 1980s by early members of the Unicode Consortium; this non-profit organization coordinates the development of the standard worldwide. Early versions of Unicode were designed to accommodate most languages in use at the time. In 1996, its capacity increased to over a million distinct characters, while also allowing ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs to be entered and displayed with a Unicode text editor. The Unicode standard specifically defines more than 107,000 characters. Even more complex letters and symbols can be created using these building blocks.
Unicode is supported to some extent in most modern web browsers, computer software applications, and operating systems. Before Unicode, there were many different methods of representing non-Latin alphabets, most of which were incompatible with each other. This made it very difficult to enter or view text in multiple languages at the same time. A Unicode text editor represents and stores such content in a consistent and well-defined way: the text created can be easily shared with other Unicode-compliant applications and web pages around the world.
A full Unicode text editor usually allows you to enter information from the keyboard in a natural way for a particular language. For example, Hebrew, Arabic, and other right-to-left languages can be entered and displayed in that direction with a Unicode editor. It is possible to include multiple languages in the same document, even if written in different directions. Not all characters can be entered easily using a localized keyboard: alternative input methods are usually provided, including choosing from an on-screen list and numeric encoding.
A Unicode text editor can import files in a variety of formats, such as Unified Hangul Code or Thai. When loading, all numerically encoded Unicode characters can be automatically converted into actual Unicode symbols. Text files can usually be saved in Unicode or American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) with non-Latin characters represented numerically. Content can often be stored in Unicode UTF-8 encoded HyperText Markup Language (HTML) format, allowing it to display properly in modern web browsers.
Unicode text editors often allow you to select different fonts and colors for individual languages, making it easier to work with a mix of content. The “combination of characters”, required by some languages to connect individual symbols, can usually be hidden or displayed. While editing, text blocks can be reordered. They can often be converted from one case to another or from HTML entities to Unicode characters. Many editors also include features that make it easier to enter and edit Asian languages, by converting text between Simplified and Traditional Chinese or between transliterations and Unicode representations, for example.
Many Unicode text editors are available commercially or through the open source community. Most modern proprietary and open source word processors can also act as Unicode editors. Several web page design tools and email editors also do this. Unicode text editors are generally available for all major operating systems, and there are several web-based tools as well.
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