Text in a file, email, or web page can be typed in any language and stored in a variety of computer encodings. The point is not only in the variety of modern encodings, which are more or less ordered, but also in the storage of documents that are primarily of historical value. There are also cases when a document was saved several times in different encodings. If the text opens as an incomprehensible set of characters, it must be brought into a form that is readable.

You will need

• Computer, text editor, online decoder, special “transcoder” programs

Instructions

If the text on a web page is not readable, select the encoding in your browser. To do this, left-click on the “Encoding” item in the “View” menu. In the drop-down list, select the available encodings until the text is readable. The first Russian encoding KOI-8 appeared on computers when they were not yet personal, with the UNIX operating system. It is used on computers with UNIX-like operating systems, such as Linux. Next was the Russian DOS-866 encoding for the MS-DOS operating system from Microsoft. With the release of Windows 3.0, Win-1251 came into play. Currently, UNIX-like systems use ISO 8859-5 encoding. In addition to them, you can sometimes find alternative encodings 855, DKOI-8, GOST and Bulgarian encoding. It is very rare to find MacCyrillic encoding on documents, which is used only on Macintosh computers.

Save the text as a text file, then open it in a text editor; try opening the document in several different text editors if necessary. File managers can also detect the encoding in which a file is saved and convert it to the required encoding.

Place part of the text or all of the text, depending on its size, into an online decoder (decoder, mail decoder, Cyrillic alphabet converter). After decoding, several text options will be offered, as well as the name of the encoding in which the file is supposed to be located.

To determine the encoding and, if necessary, recode the text, you must use special “transcoder” programs. These programs are quite popular on the Internet and easy to use, while some of them allow you to work with the maximum possible number of encodings used and provide the most accessible options for working with them.

Tip added on July 27, 2011 Tip 2: How to determine the encoding Sometimes the required file or web page does not open, and when it is displayed, only incomprehensible characters are visible. There are times when a text editor or browser cannot determine the required encoding. In this case, you have to select it yourself using additional utilities.

You will need

• A text editor that works with a large number of encodings, or a decoder program.

Instructions

If a file opens incorrectly in one editor, this does not mean that it has the wrong encoding. It's worth trying to open the same file in another program. One of the utilities that, in most cases, accurately determines the required character set is the free Notepad++ editor.

If you still cannot open the file, you can use online services to determine the encoding, of which there are a great many on the Internet.

There are also programs that can decipher Russian texts in different encodings. Undoubtedly, the leader is the Stirlitz application for Windows. It knows almost all code sheets and knows many transliteration methods. Moreover, this program is capable of performing text transformation operations from the original format to any other.

In Linux, to open a file containing an unfamiliar encoding, you can use some console conversion commands or ready-made programs. Under QT, there is an application called QTexTransformer, which will help you determine the name of the encoding and make the appropriate transformations. Under Linux, there are many linguistic modules written in Perl. For example, Lingua DetectCharset or DetectCyrillic (to detect Cyrillic characters). The mousepad program displays Windows files well. To convert, you can also use the console command “econv path_to_file”, which will independently determine the current encoding and convert it to the current locale.

Useful advice The word processor Word does a good job of choosing the right encoding. Even if the file has not been opened in other editors, the “Auto Select” function will work in it. Sources

• One of the most famous text decoders

How to determine the encoding - printable version

Text decoder - translator of utf 8 and windows 1251 encodings online

UTF-8(Unicode Transformation Format, 8-bit - “Unicode Transformation Format, 8-bit”) is one of the generally accepted and standardized text encodings that allows you to store characters in Unicode. The UTF-8 standard is officially enshrined in RFC 3629 and ISO/IEC 10646 Annex D. The encoding is widely used in UNIX-like operating systems and the web. The BOM uses the byte sequence EF16, BB16, BF16 (which is a three-byte implementation of the FEFF16 symbol). One advantage is compatibility with ASCII - any of their 7-bit characters are displayed as is, and the rest produce garbage (noise) to the user. Therefore, if Latin letters and simple punctuation marks (including spaces) occupy a significant amount of text, UTF-8 provides a gain in volume compared to UTF-16.

Windows-1251(synonymous with CP1251) - is a standard 8-bit encoding for all Russian versions of Microsoft Windows. It is quite popular. Windows-1251 compares favorably with other 8-bit Cyrillic encodings (such as CP866, KOI8-R and ISO 8859-5) by the presence of almost all the characters used in Russian typography for plain text (only the accent mark is missing); it also contains all the symbols for languages ​​close to Russian: Ukrainian, Belarusian, Serbian, Macedonian and Bulgarian.

Universal online decoder (encoding translator)

Such a translator (service or software) is also called decoder, if you have to work with different text encodings or have problems with the encoding of pages in PHP (displayed as a strange combination of mysterious characters - “krakozyabry”). A functional and universal online service that will automatically help you determine the encoding and show examples of all encoding combinations so that you can choose the appropriate one and translate text from one encoding to another. That is, a universal decoder will help translate text (assuming it is in Cyrillic) into other international formats.

To use the online text encoding translator, simply follow the link [DECODER]

This decoder is universal; do you want to encode text for PHP or HTML pages, or maybe in Java? All encoding problems are solved by decoding (recoding) using a decoder, but the encoding method depends on the format of the document in which it was encoded and for this it is necessary to change the format of the document itself, and not to invent new methods of interpretation. In the case of servers, use their configuration - an online encoding translator will help you find out which encoding is used in your case - paste the copied characters into the decoder window.

Each program is written using special code, which is a basic part of programming. Today we will talk about how to determine the encoding with which a particular program was written.

What is encoding?

An encoding (one of the parts of a programming language) is a certain sequential set of numbers and characters, thanks to which you can create new files and programs. It is a basic element of every programming language and can be adapted to any platform by converting the original version. After complete writing, it is almost impossible or even very difficult to determine the encoding; it all depends on what programs it was written with. Encoding in programming should not be confused with its counterpart in other programs, which simply encrypt certain information or certain parts of it.

How to determine file encoding

It is necessary to recognize a programming language only in two cases: firstly, when it is necessary to add to the program or remake it; secondly, when you need to write a completely opposite version to the existing one. It is advisable that the same specialist deal with all this, but if this is not possible, then you should have knowledge of how to determine the encoding.

Programs

You can determine the encoding using a certain number of programs. Let's talk about them. One of these is the Stirlitz program. She will not only be able to determine the encoding, but will also select the necessary code to change the data. Notepad++ is also a good program. With its help, you can analyze the file you need in just five to ten minutes, depending on its size. A special feature of the program is that it can convert the necessary documents into different programming languages ​​and save them in this form. Next is the UltraEdit program, which will not only detect the file encoding, but will also be able to convert it. Its peculiarity is that it encodes not only the package as a whole, but also its text separately. Some documents may show the encoding themselves. To do this, open the context menu on the document shortcut, select the “Encoding” function and see what this file gives you. If the editor is good, then he will also be able to change the current code, converting the package for different programming languages. There are other programs whose purpose is to encode files, convert them and the ability to adapt a file to several programming languages ​​at the same time, but we have provided only those that require only basic skills to work with.

Let's sum it up

Thanks to this article, you learned about what encoding is, where and why it is used, and also in what ways you can recognize it. We touched upon the conversation a bit about the fact that an encoding program can change the code of a file, adapting it to different programming languages.

There are many ways to encode information, during which the message is converted into a combination of symbols. It often happens that when you visit a web page, strange symbols appear instead of letters.

You will need

• - a computer with Internet access.

Instructions

Use an online decoder to find out the file encoding and decode the characters. To do this, open the browser program, follow the link http://www.artlebedev.ru/tools/decoder/. This decoder was created for decoding email messages to help users read unclear email messages.

To find out the encoding of the text, copy it to the clipboard, then right-click in the decoder field and select the “Paste” command. Next, click on the “Decrypt” button. The decoded text will appear in the field, and below on the page the source encoding and the encoding into which the text was recoded will be indicated.

Download a special program to determine the encoding, as well as to transcode text, for example, the Tcode program. To do this, follow the link http://it.sander.su/download.php, click the TCode link, wait for the file to download. After the download is complete, unzip the archive to any folder and run the executable file.

Insert text from the file for which you need to know the encoding, or select the “Open file” button on the toolbar. Next, click the button at the bottom of the “Recode” screen. The text from the file will be automatically recoded into the required encoding. The original encoding will be displayed in the status bar, and the percentage of character recognition will also be displayed. By hovering over this line, you can determine which characters were not recognized by the program.

Install AkelPad, which can recognize file encodings. To do this, follow the link http://akelpad.sourceforge.net/ru/download.php and select the desired version to download. After installation, launch the program. Paste text from the file to determine the encoding.

Select the “Encoding” menu and the “Define encoding” command, or call this command using the Alt+F5 key combination. A window will appear in which the source encoding will be indicated, and will also offer the option of transcoding the text into the encoding necessary for reading the text.

Tip added on July 27, 2011 Tip 2: How to determine the encoding Sometimes the required file or web page does not open, and when it is displayed, only incomprehensible characters are visible. There are times when a text editor or browser cannot determine the required encoding. In this case, you have to select it yourself using additional utilities.

You will need

• A text editor that works with a large number of encodings, or a decoder program.

Instructions

If a file opens incorrectly in one editor, this does not mean that it has the wrong encoding. It's worth trying to open the same file in another program. One of the utilities that, in most cases, accurately determines the required character set is the free Notepad++ editor.

If you still cannot open the file, you can use online services to determine the encoding, of which there are a great many on the Internet.

There are also programs that can decipher Russian texts in different encodings. Undoubtedly, the leader is the Stirlitz application for Windows. It knows almost all code sheets and knows many transliteration methods. Moreover, this program is capable of performing text transformation operations from the original format to any other.

In Linux, to open a file containing an unfamiliar encoding, you can use some console conversion commands or ready-made programs. Under QT, there is an application called QTexTransformer, which will help you determine the name of the encoding and make the appropriate transformations. Under Linux, there are many linguistic modules written in Perl. For example, Lingua DetectCharset or DetectCyrillic (to detect Cyrillic characters). The mousepad program displays Windows files well. To convert, you can also use the console command “econv path_to_file”, which will independently determine the current encoding and convert it to the current locale.

Useful advice The word processor Word does a good job of choosing the right encoding. Even if the file has not been opened in other editors, the “Auto Select” function will work in it. Sources

• One of the most famous text decoders

How to determine the encoding - printable version

Each program is written using special code, which is a basic part of programming. Today we will talk about how to determine the encoding with which a particular program was written.

What is encoding?

An encoding (one of the parts of a programming language) is a certain sequential set of numbers and characters, thanks to which you can create new files and programs. It is a basic element of every programming language and can be adapted to any platform by converting the original version. After complete writing, it is almost impossible or even very difficult to determine the encoding; it all depends on what programs it was written with. Encoding in programming should not be confused with its counterpart in other programs, which simply encrypt certain information or certain parts of it.

How to determine file encoding

It is necessary to recognize a programming language only in two cases: firstly, when it is necessary to add to the program or remake it; secondly, when you need to write a completely opposite version to the existing one. It is advisable that the same specialist deal with all this, but if this is not possible, then you should have knowledge of how to determine the encoding.

Programs

You can determine the encoding using a certain number of programs. Let's talk about them. One of these is the Stirlitz program. She will not only be able to determine the encoding, but will also select the necessary code to change the data. Notepad++ is also a good program. With its help, you can analyze the file you need in just five to ten minutes, depending on its size. A special feature of the program is that it can convert the necessary documents into different programming languages ​​and save them in this form. Next is the UltraEdit program, which will not only detect the file encoding, but will also be able to convert it. Its peculiarity is that it encodes not only the package as a whole, but also its text separately. Some documents may show the encoding themselves. To do this, open the document shortcut, select the “Encoding” function and see what this file gives you. If the editor is good, then he will also be able to change the current code, converting the package for different programming languages. There are other programs whose purpose is to encode files, convert them and the ability to adapt a file to several programming languages ​​at the same time, but we have provided only those that require only basic skills to work with.

Let's sum it up

Thanks to this article, you learned about what encoding is, where and why it is used, and also in what ways you can recognize it. We touched upon the conversation a bit about the fact that an encoding program can change the code of a file, adapting it to different programming languages.