Saving Files in Unicode Option

<< Using Microsoft Word as a Unicode Text Editor

<< Unicode Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Notes

This section provides a tutorial example on how to save text files with Word by selecting the Unicode encoding option on the file conversion dialog box.

Let's continue to try the save function with the Unicode option.

1. Run Word and open hello.utf-8 correctly with the Unicode (UTF-8) encoding option selected.

2. Click the File > "Save As" menu. The "Save As" dialog box comes up.

3. Enter word_utf-16le.txt as the new file name and select the "Plain Text (*.txt)" option in the "Save as Type" field.

4. Click the Save button. The File Conversion dialog box comes up.

5. Click the "Other encoding" radio button and select the "Unicode" option.

6. Click the OK button. Word saves the text to a new file named as: word_utf-16le.txt.

7. To see how my text is saved by Word, I need to run my HEX dump program on word_utf-16le.txt:

C:\herong\unicode>java HexWriter word_utf-16le.txt word_utf-16le.hex
Number of input bytes: 170

C:\herong\unicode>type word_utf-16le.hex
FFFE480065006C006C006F0020006300
6F006D00700075007400650072002100
20002D00200045006E0067006C006900
730068000D000A0035751181604F7D59
01FF20002D002000530069006D007000
6C006900660069006500640020004300
680069006E006500730065000D000A00
FB966681604F7D5957FE20002D002000
54007200610064006900740069006F00
6E0061006C0020004300680069006E00
6500730065000D000A00

Very nice. This is a perfect UTF-16 encoding file using the Little-Endian with BOM format. Those leading 2 bytes represent the BOM flag, which is not part of the text.

Conclusion - The Unicode encoding option of MS Word matches the "Little-Endian with BOM" format of Unicode UTF-16 encoding.

Sections in This Chapter

What Is Microsoft Word?

Opening UTF-8 Text Files

Opening UTF-16BE Text Files

Opening UTF-16LE Text Files

Saving Files in "Unicode (UTF-8)" Option

Saving Files in "Unicode (Big-Endian)" Option

Saving Files in Unicode Option

Supported Save and Open File Formats