Creating Multilanguage Text > Choosing an encoding language |  |

Choosing an encoding language

All text in a computer is encoded as a series of bytes. Many different forms of encoding (and therefore different bytes) are used to represent text. Different kinds of operating systems use different kinds of encoding for text. For example, Western Windows operating systems usually use CP1252 encoding; Western Macintosh operating systems usually use MacRoman encoding; Japanese Windows or Macintosh systems usually use Shift-JIS encoding.

Unicode can encode most languages and characters of the world. The other forms of text encoding used by computers are subsets of the Unicode format, tailored to specific regions of the world. Some of these forms are compatible in some ranges and incompatible in other ranges, so using the correct encoding is critical.

Unicode comes in several forms. The Flash Player 6 supports text in external text or XML files in the 8-bit Unicode format UTF-8, and in the 16-bit Unicode formats UTF-16 BE (Big Endian) and UTF-16 LE (Little Endian). See Text encoding in the Flash Player 6.

When text is Unicode encoded in Flash Player 6 movies, users can view multilanguage text regardless of the operating system running the player. Users must have access to fonts containing the glyphs used in the text. See Fonts for Unicode-encoded text.

You can choose the traditional code page (the encoding language) for your operating system.

To choose an encoding language in Windows:

1 | In the Control Panel, select Regional Options.
2 | With the General tab selected, under the Setting for the current user, choose a language from the Your Locale (location) pop-up menu.
3 | On the General tab, under Language settings for the system, click the Set Default button.
4 | In the Select System Locale dialog box, choose a language for the default language.
5 | Click OK.

To choose an encoding language on Macintosh OS X.x:

1 | In System Preferences, select International.
2 | Select your primary language.
3 | Click OK.

To choose an encoding language on Macintosh OS 9.x:

Install the Macintosh Language Kit.

The encoding is automatically chosen.