Unicode / UTF-8 support

UltraEdit / UEStudio provides support for Unicode (16-bit wide character, or UTF-16) and UTF-8 files. You can directly edit UTF-8 and UTF-16 files and convert them between ANSI and Unicode formats. UltraEdit / UEStudio will attempt to detect the file's encoding type when the file is loaded. It will look for the FF FE mark for Unicode (UTF-16) files. For UTF-8 it will look for one of the following three occurrences:

1. Byte order mark (BOM): EF BB BF.
2. String occurrences "charset=utf-8" or "encoding=utf-8" in the file.
3. The occurrence of valid UTF-8 multi-byte characters in the first 64KB of the file.

If the file is determined to be Unicode, it will be treated as such and the status bar will indicate this. A Unicode file saved in big endian format will be indicated with "UTF-16BE". A Unicode file saved in little endian format will be indicated with "UTF-16".

If the file is determined to be UTF-8, it will be treated as such and on open, it will be converted internally to Unicode (16-bit) for editing. The status bar will indicate this with "UTF-8". When the file is saved, it will be converted back from Unicode to UTF-8 and saved in this format.

You can convert files between different encoding formats using the two following methods:

• Via the "Encoding" drop down in the Save as dialog
• Via the Conversions drop down in the Advanced tab.

The encoding selector in the status bar only changes the encoding used to view the file. It does not actually change the file's underlying encoding type.

The following conversions to and from Unicode/UTF-8 are available:

Conversion Type	Description
ASCII to Unicode	Converts from ASCII to Unicode.
UTF-8 to Unicode	Converts from UTF-8 to Unicode (16-bit)..
Unicode to ASCII	Converts from Unicode to ASCII.
UTF-8 to ASCII	Converts from UTF-8 to ASCII.
ASCII to UTF-8 (Unicode Editing)	Converts from ASCII to UTF-8 with the file internally in UNICODE format for editing.
Unicode/UTF-8 to UTF-8 (Unicode)	Converts the file from either Unicode or UTF-8 (non-Unicode internally) to UTF-8 with the file internally in UNICODE format for editing.
Unicode/ASCII/UTF-8 to UTF-8 (ASCII)	Converts from Unicode, ASCII, or UTF-8 (Unicode format internally) to UTF-8, but leaves the file in non-Unicode (ASCII display) format for editing.