Formats of Text Files
Text files can be stored in different formats, encodings or codings. Each coding has different advantages and disadvantages, so that it depends on the desired purpose, which of the encodings is the most ideal for you. On this page, we introduce different storage formats of text files that you can also use in the programs TextConverter and TextEncoder.
Take in mind that UTF is an acronym for Unicode Transformation Format, while in ANSI format not all Unicode characters can be stored.
How to change the format of a file, you can read in the sections at the bottom of this page.
ASCII and ANSI
The ANSI format stores only the 128 ASCII characters and 128 extended characters. ANSI uses only 1 byte per character, but you can save only 256 different characters, so that not all of the Unicode characters can be supported. [more...]
UTF-7
The seldom-used and variable-length format UTF-7 only uses ASCII characters to store Unicode strings, so that you are able to work with Unicode strings also in 7-bit enviroments, where only ASCII can be transmitted and stored. [more...]
UTF-8
The UTF-8 format is the most common encoding for Unicode characters and is optimized for the display of ASCII characters. For this it needs only one byte per character, for all other characters variable from two to four bytes. [more...]
UTF-16 Little Endian and UTF-16 Big Endian
The UTF-16 format is optimized for the most commonly used characters from the Basic Multilingual Plane and encodes characters in a variable-length from two to four bytes. As Byte Order, Little Endian and Big Endian is allowed. [more...]
UTF-32 Little Endian and UTF-32 Big Endian
This format encodes each character using uniform 4 bytes, the byte order can be elected both as Little Endian as well as Big Endian. Because of the high memory requirements, this format is rarely used. [more...]
Change Encoding of Text Files
You can easily change the format of one or more files using the Text Encoder. Such a conversion from one format to another may be necessary, for example, if you would like to switch your website from ANSI to UTF-8, or if you want to read files of an unusual format and you need to change a large number of files. Simply proceed as follows:
- Drag any files you want to change onto the Text Encoder.
- On the right side of the main window under "Encoding", under "Save as" select your desired format, for example UTF-8.
- In the lower right corner of the main window, you will find the storage options. Here you determine whether you want to overwrite the original file or if you want to save the converted file as a new file. For example, in a new folder.
- Finally, click on the "Convert" button. This changes the format of all added files.
With the program version Text Encoder Pro CL you can also change the format of files automatically via batch script and without graphical user interface.
Change Format of Text Files in the Text Converter
The Text Converter can also be used to change the format of files. Just follow these steps:
- Drag all the files that you want to convert onto the Text Converter.
- On the right side in the "Actions" section, go to "Encoding".
- Click on the button "Change Encoding".
- Select your desired encoding and click on the "Change Encoding" button.
If you want to make other changes to the text files in your list additionally to the encoding, simply use the Text Converter as normal and use the following option additionally:
- Go to the menu "Settings > Output Settings" and select the desired format from the list, for example UTF-8.
- Under "Save", specify whether you want to overwrite the files or save them as new files.
- Click on "Convert" in the Text Converter to convert and save all files.
Also the Text Converter is available in a version for the command line. In this version you can execute the complete changes by script. All information can be found on the page of the Text Converter Pro CL.