Different encoding standards for different alphabets Different languages commonly consist of different sets of characters, so many different encoding standards exist to represent the character sets that are used in different languages. A character set can include alphabetical characters, numbers, and other symbols. It does this is by using an encoding standard.Īn encoding standard is a numbering scheme that assigns each text character in a character set to a numeric value. Your computer translates the numeric values into visible characters. What appears to you as text on the screen is actually stored as numeric values in the text file. Look up encoding standards that are available in Word What do you want to do?Ĭhoose an encoding standard when you open a fileĬhoose an encoding standard when you save a file

When you or someone else opens a text file in Microsoft Word or in another program - perhaps on a computer that has system software in a language that is different from the language that was used to create the file - the encoding standard helps that program determine how to represent the text so that it is readable. However, if you share text files with people who work in other languages, download text files across the Internet, or share text files with other computer systems, you may need to choose an encoding standard when you open or save a file. Typically, you can share text files without worrying about the underlying details of how the text is stored.

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