 <page xmlns="http://projectmallard.org/1.0/"
      xmlns:its="http://www.w3.org/2005/11/its"
      type="topic" style="task"
      id="gedit-character-encodings">

  <info>
    <link type="guide" xref="index#gedit-working-with-files" group="last"/>
    <link type="seealso" xref="gedit-open-files"/>
    <desc>When text and characters do not look as expected.</desc>
    <revision pkgversion="3.38" date="2020-11-16" status="draft"/>
    <credit type="author">
      <name>Andre Klapper</name>
      <email its:translate="no">ak-47@gmx.net</email>
      <year>2020</year>
    </credit>
    <credit type="author">
      <name>Shaun McCance</name>
      <email its:translate="no">shaunm@gnome.org</email>
      <year>2009</year>
    </credit>
      <include href="legal.xml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"/>
  </info>

  <title>Dealing with character encoding problems</title>

  <section id="basics">
    <title>Character encodings</title>
    <p>A character encoding is a specific way of recording characters internally
    in a computer. There are many character encodings.</p>
    <p>By default, <app>gedit</app> uses UTF-8, a modern character encoding
    that can handle text from most of the world's languages. Another common
    encoding for English and some other Western languages is ISO-8859-1.</p>
  </section>

  <section id="problems">
  <title>Problems</title>
  <p>If you open a file in a different character encoding than the encoding
  in which the file was written, then some or all characters might be displayed
  incorrectly.</p>
 
  <p>This can happen if the file was created on another operating system
  or if the file uses a different script.</p>
  </section>
  
  <section id="solutions">
  <title>Solutions</title>

  <p>If the content of a text file does not look as expected,
  <link xref="gedit-open-files">open the file</link> again by choosing a different
  <gui>Character Encoding</gui> at the bottom of the file chooser dialog.</p>

  <p>If you have an idea which language is used in the document or in the area
  of the original author of the document:</p>
  <steps>
    <item>
      <p>Select <gui style="menuitem">Add or remove…</gui> from the <gui>Character Encoding</gui> dropdown at the bottom of the file chooser dialog.</p>
    </item>
    <item>
      <p>Select one or more languages and their encodings under <gui>Available Encodings</gui> on the left.</p>
    </item>
    <item>
      <p>Press <gui style="button">+</gui> to add the selected encodings to the <gui>Character Encoding</gui> dropdown.</p>
    </item>
    <item>
      <p>Close the dialog by pressing <gui style="button">Apply</gui>.</p>
    </item>
  </steps>

  <note style="tip"><p>If none of these solutions solve the problem, then you
  could try to edit the file anyway. It is recommended to first create a backup
  copy of your file.</p></note>
  
  </section>
</page>
