National characters destroyed.

[Christer Gustafsson]

Hi,

I am in Scandinavia and therefore I use å ä ö å æ ø. In LaTeX documents a TSE macro is used in text documents to change these into e.g. {\aa} etc. This is  the TeX standard from the very beginning.

This has worked for more than three decades. But not any more: After encountering problems this year with the LaTeX installer LeXLive, I switched to the installer named MikTeX. The installation worked fine and nice figures (from Asymptote) appeared. I did not worry when, after a while, I noticed TSE used some odd characters when doing frames e.g. in the windows in a ctrl-R dialogue..  Only today did I find that the error was grave: when I wrote a text file, after having used LaTeX,  then I realized the Scandinavian characters were completely lost.

Earlier discussions in this group show that many members have extended knowledge of code-page matters. Therefore I ask if someone can tell what code-page I use in standard Windows when I tell it to use a Norwegian keyboard. Given its name, I hope to make use of the hint from LeChat reproduced below.

Best regards,

Christer

LeChat:

• Command-Line Options:

  MiKTeX can be configured via command-line options, and some of these options may affect the encoding used during compilation. If you're using command-line tools, make sure the options are compatible with your document's encoding.

To resolve the issue, you can try: 

1. Specify Encoding in Your Document: The best solution is to explicitly declare the encoding of your document using the inputenc package in LaTeX:

Code

    \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} 

Replace utf8 with the actual encoding of your document (e.g., latin1, cp1252, etc.). 

[Carlo Hogeveen]

One part of the answer is very simple:
For this problem is probably irrelevant which keyboard you have defined in Windows.
The Windows’ keyboard setting only determines what happens as you type.
Your problem happens later, as I understand it.

There is no simple answer to the rest of your question, because it depends on a lot of factors, starting with whether you use the GUI (g32.exe) or the Console (e32.exe) of Windows TSE.

Yes, you are probably experiencing one program not expecting the code page another program uses.

I took the time to extensively describe code pages in TSE’s context.
Please take the time to read or study
https://ecarlo.nl/tse/files/CodePages.html
and then let us know if you have further questions.

I am not familiar with the other programs you mention, but I know there are some other LaTex users here.

Carlo

From: sem...@googlegroups.com <sem...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Christer Gustafsson
Sent: Saturday, July 12, 2025 12:33 PM
To: sem...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [TSE] National characters destroyed.

Hi,

I am in Scandinavia and therefore I use å ä ö å æ ø. In LaTeX documents a TSE macro is used in text documents to change these into e.g. {\aa} etc. This is the TeX standard from the very beginning.

This has worked for more than three decades. But not any more: After encountering problems this year with the LaTeX installer LeXLive, I switched to the installer named MikTeX. The installation worked fine and nice figures (from Asymptote) appeared. I did not worry when, after a while, I noticed TSE used some odd characters when doing frames e.g. in the windows in a ctrl-R dialogue.. Only today did I find that the error was grave: when I wrote a text file, after having used LaTeX, then I realized the Scandinavian characters were completely lost.

Earlier discussions in this group show that many members have extended knowledge of code-page matters. Therefore I ask if someone can tell what code-page I use in standard Windows when I tell it to use a Norwegian keyboard. Given its name, I hope to make use of the hint from LeChat reproduced below.

Best regards,
Christer

LeChat:
• Command-Line Options:
MiKTeX can be configured via command-line options, and some of these options may affect the encoding used during compilation. If you're using command-line tools, make sure the options are compatible with your document's encoding.
To resolve the issue, you can try:

1. Specify Encoding in Your Document: The best solution is to explicitly declare the encoding of your document using the inputenc package in LaTeX:

Code
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
Replace utf8 with the actual encoding of your document (e.g., latin1, cp1252, etc.).

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[knud van eeden]

> Therefore I ask if someone can tell what code-page I use in standard Windows when I tell it to use a Norwegian keyboard. 

See also 

https://ecarlo.nl/tse/files/CodePages.html

Quick general answer basically always

Code Page 850

Note: only if choosing 'locale' > 'English United States' + restart PC, you will get 

Code Page 437

Note: TSE seems to always choose and read that global 'locale' setting, I was not able to change it to something else in TSE.

Note: what I did to check which codepage in TSE I always used 'TSE menu > Utils  > ASCII chart, then scroll down to the bottom. Then if I saw a 'squareroot' sign I knew it was code page 437. If I saw small 1 2 3 characters I knew it was codepage 850.

I seem to have used 437 default for many years, only recently noticed it was now 850 default. So no usual drawing characters in TSE Terminal font anymore out of the box. Now I set it back via 'locale' to 437 and drawing is OK again.

Note: It is my experience in general to be very careful and best to avoid about saving one's precious files while working in different fonts in e.g. different editors and then saving your files in that other font and then loading it back with your usual  font. Like work on the file in and save in Notepad then back into TSE. At least once had to restore from backup to resolve.

Note: if everything fails upload a simplest file with the a o u ... issue, describe your font used and font size, TSE version used, steps to reproduce, MikTeX version  ... for possible further investigation.

with friendly greetings 

Knud van Eeden

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra / 1 terabyte / artificial intelligence

[Knud van Eeden]

Note: Depending on the font selected it might also be code page 1252.

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[knud van eeden]

So for you to check in TSE

Note: what I did to check which codepage in TSE I always used 'TSE menu > Utils  > ASCII chart, then scroll down to the bottom. Then if I saw a 'squareroot' sign I knew it was code page 437. If I saw small 1 2 3 characters I knew it was codepage 850.

If you thus do not see at the bottom or a squareroot sign and do not see a small 1 2 3 but instead an Icelandic 'th' sign (looks like a 'p') then you know it is codepage 1252.

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra / 1 terabyte / artificial intelligence

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[J. David Boyd]

You're talking about decimal character 255 in the ascii chart, right?   I get an umlauted y.

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What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding? 

[Knud van Eeden]

No, the focusing is on the significant (at least for me) characters at the bottom,  thus among those squareroot sign (looks like a V) for 437, small 123 for 850 and Icelandic p for 1252.

Not specifically 255 thus, as that was not really standing out in general for me.

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[Christer Gustafsson]

Thank you  for your quick replies. First: I run Windows 10 and E32.exe  version 4.50.

Here is what I have done:

Create a "fresh" DOS window.. CHCP shows 850. Start TSE and do CTRL-A . Character 132 shows as German a umlaut. (a with two dots over). Perfect.

In that DOS window not "compile* the file x.tex by means of LaTeX. Thereafter start TSE and do ctrl+A: Result all characters in the range 127-255 display as destroyed (TSE displays a framed questionmark). Not perfect.

My fix: the "compilation" of tex-files are done with a batch-file of my own. As  new first and last lines have been inserted "chcp 850". 

That solves my problem so that I can go on with what I do.

Best regards,

Christer

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