Using Unicode

Unicode lets you store and display multilingual text on your computer. Horizon can store and display MARC records in Unicode. However, your workstation must be able to handle Unicode. (For more information, see “Learning About Horizon’s Unicode Capabilities” in the “Getting Started” chapter of the System Administration Guide.)

You must be running Windows NT, Windows 2000, or Windows XP to use Unicode. You must also specify a Unicode font to use in Horizon. (For instructions on choosing the font for Horizon, see “Logging In to and Out of Horizon” in the “Getting Started” chapter of the Horizon Basics Guide, or see Changing Font Options.)

Horizon uses Unicode to translate the characters in a MARC record and display them properly. However, the number of characters available for display depends on the font used on your workstation. One Unicode font is available in Windows NT. Horizon includes an additional Unicode font (Andale WT J).

A character that cannot display in Unicode may display as a place‑holding character such as an empty box or a solid bar, or as the raw code. (For example, <U+00e6> is the raw code for the digraph “ae.”) Horizon saves the code for any of these characters with the file so that when a Unicode‑capable font is used, whether on the Horizon workstation or on another computer to which you have exported the file, the character will display correctly.

Data entry is also dependent on which codepage is specified for your workstation. This means that you can enter Turkish characters with a Turkish codepage specified or Russian with a Russian codepage specified, but you cannot enter Turkish characters with a Russian codepage specified, and vice versa. (A codepage tells your computer which set of language characters to use as display characters. For more information, see your Windows user guide or Windows online Help.)

You might want to enter a special character using Unicode values. Horizon can display some Unicode values. (For more information, see “Creating or Editing a Diacritic Shortcut” in the Launcher Configuration Guide.)

For more information on Unicode, including character set tables, see the document from the Library of Congress titled “MARC 21: Specifications for Record Structure, Character Sets, and Exchange Media” at this URL: http://lcweb.loc.gov/marc/specifications/. You can also go to the Unicode Home Page at http://www.unicode.org.

To enter special characters using Unicode

1 Open a MARC record.
2 Put your insertion pointer where you want to add a special character.
3 Enter the Unicode value in the form <U+XXXX> where the Xs are alphanumeric characters.

Any letters that you use can be either uppercase or lowercase. Horizon displays the Unicode character as soon as you move the pointer out of the subfield or when you reformat or save the record.

 


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