Revisions to My text file is riddled with question marks. How can I make it readable?

Added Windows-1270, Sami languages to the table.

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edited Mar 13, 2023 at 10:34

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How can I make all these letters appear correctly?
How can I make all these letters appear correctly?

The problem with ANSI encoding is that – although the name suggests that it's following a standard – it is conditional on what natural language the text is written in.
In the case of Swedish/Scandinavian, or even all Western European (Latin) languages,
"ANSI" encoding means the code page Windows-1252. ¹

To achieve this, you need to enable the Auto Guess Encoding feature of VS Code.
Press Ctrl+, ² (comma) and paste or type autoGuessEncoding. ² Check the box where it says :
"When enabled, the editor will attempt to guess the character set encoding when opening files. This setting can also be configured per language. Note, this setting is not respected by text search. Only Files: Encoding is respected." ³

Searching the internet, trying to find out what "ANSI" means in the the context of encoding, will likely encoding may cause confusion.

You
You might encounter that ANSI is "a misnomer", which is true but, not of much practical help.

I believe that whatWhat clears up the confusion is to realize that when Microsoft Microsoft writes "ANSI" "ANSI" in the status bar of notepad.exe, it typicallyit typically means Windows-1252.
For other natural languages, "ANSI" means the code page Windows-125x other than Western European, where x is number 0-8, as shown insee the table below.

Other
Other well-known text editors, such as Notepad++, have picked upadopted this convention and also write "ANSI" in the status bar.

Windows-1252 is sometimes called code page 1252 or CP-1252.
Likewise Likewise for the other code pages.

ANSI encoding	Language/Alphabet
Windows-1250	Slavic languages – Latin alphabet (e.g. Polish)
Windows-1251	Slavic languages – Cyrillic alphabet (e.g. Ukrainian)
Windows-1252	Western European languages (French, German, Scandinavian, Spanish, Swahili …)
Windows-1253	Greek
Windows-1254	Turkish, Latin Azeri, and Latin Uzbek
Windows-1255	Hebrew
Windows-1256	Arabic, Farsi, Urdu
Windows-1257	Baltic languages: Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian
Windows-1258	Vietnamese
Windows-1270	Sami languages

How can I make all these letters appear correctly?

The problem with ANSI encoding is that – although the name suggests that it's following a standard – it is conditional on what natural language the text is written in.
In the case of Swedish/Scandinavian, or even all Western European (Latin) languages,
"ANSI" encoding means the code page Windows-1252. ¹

To achieve this, you need to enable the Auto Guess Encoding feature of VS Code.
Press Ctrl+, (comma) and paste or type autoGuessEncoding. ² Check the box where it says :
"When enabled, the editor will attempt to guess the character set encoding when opening files. This setting can also be configured per language. Note, this setting is not respected by text search. Only Files: Encoding is respected." ³

Searching the internet, trying to find out what "ANSI" means in the context of encoding, will likely cause confusion.

You might encounter that ANSI is "a misnomer", which is true but not of much practical help.

I believe that what clears up the confusion is to realize that when Microsoft writes "ANSI" in the status bar of notepad.exe, it typically means Windows-1252.
For other natural languages, "ANSI" means the code page Windows-125x, where x is number 0-8, as shown in the table below.

Other well-known text editors, such as Notepad++, have picked up this convention and also write "ANSI" in the status bar.

Windows-1252 is sometimes called code page 1252 or CP-1252.
Likewise for the other code pages.

ANSI encoding	Language/Alphabet
Windows-1250	Slavic languages – Latin alphabet (e.g. Polish)
Windows-1251	Slavic languages – Cyrillic alphabet (e.g. Ukrainian)
Windows-1252	Western European languages (French, German, Scandinavian, Spanish, Swahili …)
Windows-1253	Greek
Windows-1254	Turkish, Latin Azeri, and Latin Uzbek
Windows-1255	Hebrew
Windows-1256	Arabic, Farsi, Urdu
Windows-1257	Baltic languages: Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian
Windows-1258	Vietnamese

How can I make all these letters appear correctly?

The problem with ANSI encoding is that – although the name suggests that it's following a standard – it is conditional on what natural language the text is written in.
In the case of Western European (Latin) languages, "ANSI" encoding means the code page Windows-1252. ¹

To achieve this, you need to enable the Auto Guess Encoding feature of VS Code.
Press Ctrl+, ² (comma) and paste or type autoGuessEncoding. Check the box where it says :
"When enabled, the editor will attempt to guess the character set encoding when opening files. This setting can also be configured per language. Note, this setting is not respected by text search. Only Files: Encoding is respected." ³

Searching the internet to find out what "ANSI" means in the context of encoding may cause confusion.
You might encounter that ANSI is "a misnomer", which is true but, not of much practical help.

What clears up the confusion is to realize that when Microsoft writes "ANSI" in the status bar of notepad.exe, it typically means Windows-1252. For natural languages other than Western European, see the table below.
Other well-known text editors, such as Notepad++, have adopted this convention and also write "ANSI" in the status bar.

Windows-1252 is sometimes called code page 1252 or CP-1252. Likewise for the other code pages.

ANSI encoding	Language/Alphabet
Windows-1250	Slavic languages – Latin alphabet (e.g. Polish)
Windows-1251	Slavic languages – Cyrillic alphabet (e.g. Ukrainian)
Windows-1252	Western European languages (French, German, Scandinavian, Spanish, Swahili …)
Windows-1253	Greek
Windows-1254	Turkish, Latin Azeri, and Latin Uzbek
Windows-1255	Hebrew
Windows-1256	Arabic, Farsi, Urdu
Windows-1257	Baltic languages: Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian
Windows-1258	Vietnamese
Windows-1270	Sami languages

Mainly additions to Section 3 on the confusion about what "ANSI" means.

Source Link

edited Oct 19, 2022 at 15:34

Henke - Нава́льный П с м

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5
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You haveI can think of two options :

Convert the file to UTF-8UTF-8. – This is what I recommend.
Configure VS Code to auto-detect the most proper encoding.

The acronym ANSIANSI stands for American National Standards Institute.

The problem with ANSIANSI encoding is that – although the name suggests that it's following a standard – it's it is conditional on on what natural language yourthe text is written in.
In the case of Swedish/Scandinavian, or even all Western European (Latin) languages, "ANSI"
"ANSI" encoding means the code page Windows-1252Windows-1252. ¹

So, inIn VS Code, instead of looking for ANSI encoding, you should look for Windows-1252.
If you clickI clicked UTF-8 > Reopen with Encoding, then expectand VS Code to displaydisplayed
"Western (Windows 1252) Guessed from content" as its top suggestion.

Otherwise, it now remains to convert the file to UTF-8UTF-8 encoding.

This converts the file's non-ASCII characters to UTF-8 UTF-8 and encodes theencodes the file as UTF-8UTF-8.

If you don't want to convert to UTF-8UTF-8, and if you experience this problem over and over again –this problem every time you open another file – you may prefer to set VS Code to always auto-guess the encoding.

3. A table showing ANSI (Windows)The confusion about what "ANSI" encoding → language/alphabetmeans

Searching the internet, trying to find out what "ANSI" means in the context of encoding, will likely cause confusion.

You might encounter that ANSI is "a misnomer", which is true but not of much practical help.

I believe that what clears up the confusion is to realize that when Microsoft writes "ANSI" in the status bar of notepad.exe, it typically means Windows-1252.
For other natural languages, "ANSI" means the code page Windows-125x, where x is number 0-8, as shown in the table below.

Other well-known text editors, such as Notepad++, have picked up this convention and also write "ANSI" in the status bar.

Windows-1252 is sometimes called code page 1252 or CP-1252.
Likewise for the other code pages.

ANSIANSI encoding	Language/Alphabet
Windows-1250	Slavic languages – Latin alphabet (e.g. Polish)
Windows-1251	Slavic languages – Cyrillic alphabet (e.g. Ukrainian)
Windows-1252	Western European languages (French, German, Scandinavian, Spanish, Swahili …)
Windows-1253	Greek
Windows-1254	Turkish, Latin Azeri, and Latin Uzbek
Windows-1255	Hebrew
Windows-1256	Arabic, Farsi, Urdu
Windows-1257	Baltic languages: Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian
Windows-1258	Vietnamese

Download page for Notepad++

^{¹
For a list of what "ANSI" could mean, see the table in Section 3.
²
On macOS, press ⌘ instead of Ctrl.
For Linux users, "ANSI" typically means Windows-1252 – just as on
Windows.

For macOS users, try to see what VS Code suggests as
Guessed from content.

Or else have a look at
Macintosh emulation code pages at Wikipedia.
³
FromSee the default settings in VS Code.}

You have two options :

Convert the file to UTF-8. – This is what I recommend.
Configure VS Code to auto-detect the most proper encoding.

The acronym ANSI stands for American National Standards Institute.

The problem with ANSI encoding is that – although a standard – it's conditional on what natural language your text is written in. In the case of Swedish/Scandinavian, or even all Western European (Latin) languages, "ANSI" means Windows-1252. ¹

So, in VS Code, instead of looking for ANSI encoding, you should look for Windows-1252.
If you click UTF-8 > Reopen with Encoding, then expect VS Code to display
"Western (Windows 1252) Guessed from content" as its top suggestion.

Otherwise, it now remains to convert the file to UTF-8 encoding.

This converts the file's non-ASCII characters to UTF-8 and encodes the file as UTF-8.

If you don't want to convert to UTF-8, and if you experience this problem over and over again – every time you open another file – you may prefer to set VS Code to always auto-guess the encoding.

3. A table showing ANSI (Windows) encoding → language/alphabet

ANSI encoding	Language/Alphabet
Windows-1250	Slavic languages – Latin alphabet (e.g. Polish)
Windows-1251	Slavic languages – Cyrillic alphabet (e.g. Ukrainian)
Windows-1252	Western European languages (French, German, Scandinavian, Spanish, Swahili …)
Windows-1253	Greek
Windows-1254	Turkish, Latin Azeri, and Latin Uzbek
Windows-1255	Hebrew
Windows-1256	Arabic, Farsi, Urdu
Windows-1257	Baltic languages: Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian
Windows-1258	Vietnamese

^{¹
For a list of what "ANSI" could mean, see the table in Section 3.
²
On macOS, press ⌘ instead of Ctrl.
For Linux users, "ANSI" typically means Windows-1252 – just as on
Windows.

For macOS users, try to see what VS Code suggests as
Guessed from content.

Or else have a look at
Macintosh emulation code pages at Wikipedia.
³
From the default settings in VS Code.}

I can think of two options :

Convert the file to UTF-8. – This is what I recommend.
Configure VS Code to auto-detect the most proper encoding.

The acronym ANSI stands for American National Standards Institute.

The problem with ANSI encoding is that – although the name suggests that it's following a standard – it is conditional on what natural language the text is written in.
In the case of Swedish/Scandinavian, or even all Western European (Latin) languages,
"ANSI" encoding means the code page Windows-1252. ¹

In VS Code, instead of looking for ANSI encoding, look for Windows-1252.
I clicked UTF-8 > Reopen with Encoding, and VS Code displayed
"Western (Windows 1252) Guessed from content" as its top suggestion.

Otherwise, it remains to convert the file to UTF-8 encoding.

This converts the file's non-ASCII characters to UTF-8 and encodes the file as UTF-8.

If you don't want to convert to UTF-8, and if you experience this problem every time you open another file – you may prefer to set VS Code to always auto-guess the encoding.

3. The confusion about what "ANSI" encoding means

Searching the internet, trying to find out what "ANSI" means in the context of encoding, will likely cause confusion.

You might encounter that ANSI is "a misnomer", which is true but not of much practical help.

I believe that what clears up the confusion is to realize that when Microsoft writes "ANSI" in the status bar of notepad.exe, it typically means Windows-1252.
For other natural languages, "ANSI" means the code page Windows-125x, where x is number 0-8, as shown in the table below.

Other well-known text editors, such as Notepad++, have picked up this convention and also write "ANSI" in the status bar.

Windows-1252 is sometimes called code page 1252 or CP-1252.
Likewise for the other code pages.

ANSI encoding	Language/Alphabet
Windows-1250	Slavic languages – Latin alphabet (e.g. Polish)
Windows-1251	Slavic languages – Cyrillic alphabet (e.g. Ukrainian)
Windows-1252	Western European languages (French, German, Scandinavian, Spanish, Swahili …)
Windows-1253	Greek
Windows-1254	Turkish, Latin Azeri, and Latin Uzbek
Windows-1255	Hebrew
Windows-1256	Arabic, Farsi, Urdu
Windows-1257	Baltic languages: Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian
Windows-1258	Vietnamese

Download page for Notepad++

^{¹
For a list of what "ANSI" could mean, see the table in Section 3.
²
On macOS, press ⌘ instead of Ctrl.
For Linux users, "ANSI" typically means Windows-1252 – just as on
Windows.

For macOS users, try to see what VS Code suggests as
Guessed from content.

Or else have a look at
Macintosh emulation code pages at Wikipedia.
³
See the default settings in VS Code.}

Minor clarifications.

Source Link

edited Sep 26, 2022 at 16:03

Henke - Нава́льный П с м

1k
5
10
25

So, in VS Code, instead of looking for ANSI encoding, you should look forlook for Windows-1252.
If you click UTF-8 > Reopen with Encoding, then expect VS Code to display
"Western (Windows 1252) Guessed from content" as its top suggestion.

If^{^ click to enlarge}

VS Code correctly guessed the encoding Windows 1252.
If you don'tdon't want to change the encoding, you're now all set and done.

Now click on UTF-8."UTF-8 utf8" :

This converts the file's encodingnon-ASCII characters to UTF-8 :

and encodes the file as UTF-8.

If you don'tdon't want to convert to UTF-8, and if you experience this problem over and over again – every time you open another file, – you may prefer to haveset VS Code to always auto-guess the encoding.

To achieve this, you need to enable the Auto Guess Encoding feature of VS Code.
Press Ctrl+, (comma) and paste or type autoGuessEncoding. ² Check the box where it says :
"When enabled, the editor will attempt to guess the character set encoding when opening files. This setting can also be configured per language. Note, this setting is not respected by text search. Only Files: Encoding is respected." ³

3. A table showing ANSI (Windows) encoding → language/alphabet

ANSI encoding	Language/Alphabet
Windows-1250	Slavic languages – Latin alphabet (e.g. Polish)
Windows-1251	Slavic languages – Cyrillic alphabet (e.g. Ukrainian)
Windows-1252	Western European languages (Afrikaans, FrenchFrench, German, Scandinavian, Spanish, Swahili …)
Windows-1253	Greek
Windows-1254	Turkish, Latin Azeri, and Latin Uzbek
Windows-1255	Hebrew
Windows-1256	Arabic, Farsi, Urdu
Windows-1257	Baltic languages: Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian
Windows-1258	Vietnamese

^{¹
For a list of what "ANSI" could mean, see the table in Section 3.
²
On macOS, press ⌘ instead of Ctrl.
For Linux users, "ANSI" typically means Windows-1252 – just as on
Windows.

For macOS users, I don't have any experiencetry to share, but I suggestsee what VS Code suggests as
havingGuessed from content.

Or else have a look at
Macintosh emulation code pages, at Wikipedia.
³
SeeFrom the default settings in VS Code.}

So, in VS Code, instead of looking for ANSI encoding, you should look for Windows-1252.

If you don't want to change the encoding, you're now all set and done.

Now click on UTF-8. This converts the file's encoding to UTF-8 :

If you don't want to convert to UTF-8, and if you experience this problem over and over again – every time you open another file, you may prefer to have VS Code always auto-guess the encoding.

To achieve this, you need to enable the Auto Guess Encoding feature of VS Code. Press Ctrl+, and paste or type autoGuessEncoding. ² Check the box where it says :
"When enabled, the editor will attempt to guess the character set encoding when opening files. This setting can also be configured per language. Note, this setting is not respected by text search. Only Files: Encoding is respected." ³

3. A table showing ANSI encoding → language/alphabet

ANSI encoding	Language/Alphabet
Windows-1250	Slavic languages – Latin alphabet (e.g. Polish)
Windows-1251	Slavic languages – Cyrillic alphabet (e.g. Ukrainian)
Windows-1252	Western European languages (Afrikaans, French, German, Scandinavian, Spanish, Swahili …)
Windows-1253	Greek
Windows-1254	Turkish, Latin Azeri, and Latin Uzbek
Windows-1255	Hebrew
Windows-1256	Arabic, Farsi, Urdu
Windows-1257	Baltic languages: Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian
Windows-1258	Vietnamese

^{¹
For a list of what "ANSI" could mean, see the table in Section 3.
²
On macOS, press ⌘ instead of Ctrl.
For macOS users, I don't have any experience to share, but I suggest
having a look at
Macintosh emulation code pages, Wikipedia.
³
See the default settings in VS Code.}

So, in VS Code, instead of looking for ANSI encoding, you should look for Windows-1252.
If you click UTF-8 > Reopen with Encoding, then expect VS Code to display
"Western (Windows 1252) Guessed from content" as its top suggestion.

^{^ click to enlarge}

VS Code correctly guessed the encoding Windows 1252.
If you don't want to change the encoding, you're now all set and done.

Now click on "UTF-8 utf8" :

This converts the file's non-ASCII characters to UTF-8 and encodes the file as UTF-8.

If you don't want to convert to UTF-8, and if you experience this problem over and over again – every time you open another file – you may prefer to set VS Code to always auto-guess the encoding.

To achieve this, you need to enable the Auto Guess Encoding feature of VS Code.
Press Ctrl+, (comma) and paste or type autoGuessEncoding. ² Check the box where it says :
"When enabled, the editor will attempt to guess the character set encoding when opening files. This setting can also be configured per language. Note, this setting is not respected by text search. Only Files: Encoding is respected." ³

3. A table showing ANSI (Windows) encoding → language/alphabet

ANSI encoding	Language/Alphabet
Windows-1250	Slavic languages – Latin alphabet (e.g. Polish)
Windows-1251	Slavic languages – Cyrillic alphabet (e.g. Ukrainian)
Windows-1252	Western European languages (French, German, Scandinavian, Spanish, Swahili …)
Windows-1253	Greek
Windows-1254	Turkish, Latin Azeri, and Latin Uzbek
Windows-1255	Hebrew
Windows-1256	Arabic, Farsi, Urdu
Windows-1257	Baltic languages: Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian
Windows-1258	Vietnamese

^{¹
For a list of what "ANSI" could mean, see the table in Section 3.
²
On macOS, press ⌘ instead of Ctrl.
For Linux users, "ANSI" typically means Windows-1252 – just as on
Windows.

For macOS users, try to see what VS Code suggests as
Guessed from content.

Or else have a look at
Macintosh emulation code pages at Wikipedia.
³
From the default settings in VS Code.}

Adding a few references.

Source Link

edited Sep 25, 2022 at 16:26

Henke - Нава́льный П с м

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created Sep 24, 2022 at 18:19

Henke - Нава́льный П с м

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How can I make all these letters appear correctly?

How can I make all these letters appear correctly?

3. A table showing ANSI (Windows)The confusion about what "ANSI" encoding → language/alphabetmeans

3. A table showing ANSI (Windows) encoding → language/alphabet

3. The confusion about what "ANSI" encoding means

3. A table showing ANSI (Windows) encoding → language/alphabet

3. A table showing ANSI encoding → language/alphabet

3. A table showing ANSI (Windows) encoding → language/alphabet