Let's find out what a file encoding is. Simply put, an encoding is a set of byte characters that corresponds to the alphabetical alphabet in a particular language. Each language has its own specific sequence of such coding characters. Sometimes there is a need to determine the encoding. Consider this as an example of a text document.
What do you need
A set of specific software tools. For starters, applications like Word , KWrite, the Firefox browser, and the recognition tool enca are enough .
You can determine the file encoding using the universal Microsoft Word editor. Before, it needs to be installed from the Office package . When the application is installed, and can be opened using the icon in the form of the W symbol on the desktop, go to the next step.
Next stage of recognition
Through the application’s navigation panel, in turn, open the “File” - “open” items. The same can be done by using the keyboard combination Ctrl + O.
Then, in the dialog box, select the desired directory and, in fact, the file to read. Having selected it with the mouse, press the "open" button.
When the file does not have a match set of CP1251 , the application tries to determine the encoding by itself. A list of possible matches will be displayed. In the proposed character sets on the right side of the list, select one of the encodings. If the selection is made correctly, the recognized text will be displayed in the “sample” element.
How to determine the encoding using KWrite
In addition to the word processing preprocessor, Word, there are other functional utilities. One of them is KWrite (an analogue for unix systems). So that you are not confused, I will write down the points of the task "to determine the encoding of the document in KWrite."
- Download to the application a file with the extension .txt.
- Enumeration of encodings until one of them is suitable.
- To complete step 2, go to the tools option in the encoding menu.
Mozilla Firefox browser, the goal is the same - determine the encoding
The principle is approximately the same as in utilities for working with text. We launch the installed browser for execution, and if it is not installed, download the installer from mozilla.org.
Then, in the open program window, you need to open a text document through the "File" menu, the "Open file" submenu. If the selected file is displayed without distortion, and the text is readable, it is not difficult to determine the encoding.
To do this, go to “View” - “encoding”, several character sets are displayed there, and one of them, opposite which there is a “tick”, is the encoding defined by the browser.
If the text was not recognized correctly, select the “advanced” subsection, experiment with encodings in it, or select “auto”.
Specialized software - working with enca
There are a number of auxiliary electronic tools that make it possible to determine the encoding of unformatted text.
For those who are used to working under unix, the enca utility is suitable. It can be installed using the "Package Manager" service. Once you find the available category of packages, you can begin to install the software.
To list the recognition languages, run the enca --list languages command using the terminal.
If you want to determine the encoding of the text file after the key (g), enter its name, and after option (L) enter the recognition language in approximately the same way:
enca -L russian -g /home/vic/temp/myfile.txt.
To summarize what is said about the encoding
I believe that the above utilities will become for the user a sufficient set of tools for decoding text documents.
So far, in fact, it's all about how to recognize the encoding. For standard purposes, I think the specified software is quite suitable. There are more specialized methods of determination, but their consideration is beyond the scope of this article.
For Microsoft Word, the recognition source can be either plain text or a document with complex formatting.