Vim documentation: mbyte
main help file
*mbyte.txt* For Vim version 7.3. Last change: 2011 Feb 01
VIM REFERENCE MANUAL by Bram Moolenaar et al.
Multi-byte support *multibyte* *multi-byte*
*Chinese* *Japanese* *Korean*
This is about editing text in languages which have many characters that can
not be represented using one byte (one octet). Examples are Chinese, Japanese
and Korean. Unicode is also covered here.
For an introduction to the most common features, see |usr_45.txt| in the user
manual.
For changing the language of messages and menus see |mlang.txt|.
{not available when compiled without the |+multi_byte| feature}
1. Getting started |mbyte-first|
2. Locale |mbyte-locale|
3. Encoding |mbyte-encoding|
4. Using a terminal |mbyte-terminal|
5. Fonts on X11 |mbyte-fonts-X11|
6. Fonts on MS-Windows |mbyte-fonts-MSwin|
7. Input on X11 |mbyte-XIM|
8. Input on MS-Windows |mbyte-IME|
9. Input with a keymap |mbyte-keymap|
10. Using UTF-8 |mbyte-utf8|
11. Overview of options |mbyte-options|
NOTE: This file contains UTF-8 characters. These may show up as strange
characters or boxes when using another encoding.
==============================================================================
1. Getting started *mbyte-first*
This is a summary of the multibyte features in Vim. If you are lucky it works
as described and you can start using Vim without much trouble. If something
doesn't work you will have to read the rest. Don't be surprised if it takes
quite a bit of work and experimenting to make Vim use all the multi-byte
features. Unfortunately, every system has its own way to deal with multibyte
languages and it is quite complicated.
COMPILING
If you already have a compiled Vim program, check if the |+multi_byte| feature
is included. The |:version| command can be used for this.
If +multi_byte is not included, you should compile Vim with "big" features.
You can further tune what features are included. See the INSTALL files in the
source directory.
LOCALE
First of all, you must make sure your current locale is set correctly. If
your system has been installed to use the language, it probably works right
away. If not, you can often make it work by setting the $LANG environment
variable in your shell:
setenv LANG ja_JP.EUC
Unfortunately, the name of the locale depends on your system. Japanese might
also be called "ja_JP.EUCjp" or just "ja". To see what is currently used:
:language
To change the locale inside Vim use:
:language ja_JP.EUC
Vim will give an error message if this doesn't work. This is a good way to
experiment and find the locale name you want to use. But it's always better
to set the locale in the shell, so that it is used right from the start.
See |mbyte-locale| for details.
ENCODING
If your locale works properly, Vim will try to set the 'encoding' option
accordingly. If this doesn't work you can overrule its value:
:set encoding=utf-8
See |encoding-values| for a list of acceptable values.
The result is that all the text that is used inside Vim will be in this
encoding. Not only the text in the buffers, but also in registers, variables,
etc. This also means that changing the value of 'encoding' makes the existing
text invalid! The text doesn't change, but it will be displayed wrong.
You can edit files in another encoding than what 'encoding' is set to. Vim
will convert the file when you read it and convert it back when you write it.
See 'fileencoding', 'fileencodings' and |++enc|.
DISPLAY AND FONTS
If you are working in a terminal (emulator) you must make sure it accepts the
same encoding as which Vim is working with. If this is not the case, you can
use the 'termencoding' option to make Vim convert text automatically.
For the GUI you must select fonts that work with the current 'encoding'. This
is the difficult part. It depends on the system you are using, the locale and
a few other things. See the chapters on fonts: |mbyte-fonts-X11| for
X-Windows and |mbyte-fonts-MSwin| for MS-Windows.
For GTK+ 2, you can skip most of this section. The option 'guifontset' does
no longer exist. You only need to set 'guifont' and everything should "just
work". If your system comes with Xft2 and fontconfig and the current font
does not contain a certain glyph, a different font will be used automatically
if available. The 'guifontwide' option is still supported but usually you do
not need to set it. It is only necessary if the automatic font selection does
not suit your needs.
For X11 you can set the 'guifontset' option to a list of fonts that together
cover the characters that are used. Example for Korean:
:set guifontset=k12,r12
Alternatively, you can set 'guifont' and 'guifontwide'. 'guifont' is used for
the single-width characters, 'guifontwide' for the double-width characters.
Thus the 'guifontwide' font must be exactly twice as wide as 'guifont'.
Example for UTF-8:
:set guifont=-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-18-120-100-100-c-90-iso10646-1
:set guifontwide=-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal-*-18-120-100-100-c-180-iso10646-1
You can also set 'guifont' alone, Vim will try to find a matching
'guifontwide' for you.
INPUT
There are several ways to enter multi-byte characters:
- For X11 XIM can be used. See |XIM|.
- For MS-Windows IME can be used. See |IME|.
- For all systems keymaps can be used. See |mbyte-keymap|.
The options 'iminsert', 'imsearch' and 'imcmdline' can be used to chose
the different input methods or disable them temporarily.
==============================================================================
2. Locale *mbyte-locale*
The easiest setup is when your whole system uses the locale you want to work
in. But it's also possible to set the locale for one shell you are working
in, or just use a certain locale inside Vim.
WHAT IS A LOCALE? *locale*
There are many of languages in the world. And there are different cultures
and environments at least as much as the number of languages. A linguistic
environment corresponding to an area is called "locale". This includes
information about the used language, the charset, collating order for sorting,
date format, currency format and so on. For Vim only the language and charset
really matter.
You can only use a locale if your system has support for it. Some systems
have only a few locales, especially in the USA. The language which you want
to use may not be on your system. In that case you might be able to install
it as an extra package. Check your system documentation for how to do that.
The location in which the locales are installed varies from system to system.
For example, "/usr/share/locale" or "/usr/lib/locale". See your system's
setlocale() man page.
Looking in these directories will show you the exact name of each locale.
Mostly upper/lowercase matters, thus "ja_JP.EUC" and "ja_jp.euc" are
different. Some systems have a locale.alias file, which allows translation
from a short name like "nl" to the full name "nl_NL.ISO_8859-1".
Note that X-windows has its own locale stuff. And unfortunately uses locale
names different from what is used elsewhere. This is confusing! For Vim it
matters what the setlocale() function uses, which is generally NOT the
X-windows stuff. You might have to do some experiments to find out what
really works.
*locale-name*
The (simplified) format of |locale| name is:
language
or language_territory
or language_territory.codeset
Territory means the country (or part of it), codeset means the |charset|. For
example, the locale name "ja_JP.eucJP" means:
ja the language is Japanese
JP the country is Japan
eucJP the codeset is EUC-JP
But it also could be "ja", "ja_JP.EUC", "ja_JP.ujis", etc. And unfortunately,
the locale name for a specific language, territory and codeset is not unified
and depends on your system.
Examples of locale name:
charset language locale name
GB2312 Chinese (simplified) zh_CN.EUC, zh_CN.GB2312
Big5 Chinese (traditional) zh_TW.BIG5, zh_TW.Big5
CNS-11643 Chinese (traditional) zh_TW
EUC-JP Japanese ja, ja_JP.EUC, ja_JP.ujis, ja_JP.eucJP
Shift_JIS Japanese ja_JP.SJIS, ja_JP.Shift_JIS
EUC-KR Korean ko, ko_KR.EUC
USING A LOCALE
To start using a locale for the whole system, see the documentation of your
system. Mostly you need to set it in a configuration file in "/etc".
To use a locale in a shell, set the $LANG environment value. When you want to
use Korean and the |locale| name is "ko", do this:
sh: export LANG=ko
csh: setenv LANG ko
You can put this in your ~/.profile or ~/.cshrc file to always use it.
To use a locale in Vim only, use the |:language| command:
:language ko
Put this in your ~/.vimrc file to use it always.
Or specify $LANG when starting Vim:
sh: LANG=ko vim {vim-arguments}
csh: env LANG=ko vim {vim-arguments}
You could make a small shell script for this.
==============================================================================
3. Encoding *mbyte-encoding*
Vim uses the 'encoding' option to specify how characters are identified and
encoded when they are used inside Vim. This applies to all the places where
text is used, including buffers (files loaded into memory), registers and
variables.
*charset* *codeset*
Charset is another name for encoding. There are subtle differences, but these
don't matter when using Vim. "codeset" is another similar name.
Each character is encoded as one or more bytes. When all characters are
encoded with one byte, we call this a single-byte encoding. The most often
used one is called "latin1". This limits the number of characters to 256.
Some of these are control characters, thus even fewer can be used for text.
When some characters use two or more bytes, we call this a multi-byte
encoding. This allows using much more than 256 characters, which is required
for most East Asian languages.
Most multi-byte encodings use one byte for the first 127 characters. These
are equal to ASCII, which makes it easy to exchange plain-ASCII text, no
matter what language is used. Thus you might see the right text even when the
encoding was set wrong.
*encoding-names*
Vim can use many different character encodings. There are three major groups:
1 8bit Single-byte encodings, 256 different characters. Mostly used
in USA and Europe. Example: ISO-8859-1 (Latin1). All
characters occupy one screen cell only.
2 2byte Double-byte encodings, over 10000 different characters.
Mostly used in Asian countries. Example: euc-kr (Korean)
The number of screen cells is equal to the number of bytes
(except for euc-jp when the first byte is 0x8e).
u Unicode Universal encoding, can replace all others. ISO 10646.
Millions of different characters. Example: UTF-8. The
relation between bytes and screen cells is complex.
Other encodings cannot be used by Vim internally. But files in other
encodings can be edited by using conversion, see 'fileencoding'.
Note that all encodings must use ASCII for the characters up to 128 (except
when compiled for EBCDIC).
Supported 'encoding' values are: *encoding-values*
1 latin1 8-bit characters (ISO 8859-1, also used for cp1252)
1 iso-8859-n ISO_8859 variant (n = 2 to 15)
1 koi8-r Russian
1 koi8-u Ukrainian
1 macroman MacRoman (Macintosh encoding)
1 8bit-{name} any 8-bit encoding (Vim specific name)
1 cp437 similar to iso-8859-1
1 cp737 similar to iso-8859-7
1 cp775 Baltic
1 cp850 similar to iso-8859-4
1 cp852 similar to iso-8859-1
1 cp855 similar to iso-8859-2
1 cp857 similar to iso-8859-5
1 cp860 similar to iso-8859-9
1 cp861 similar to iso-8859-1
1 cp862 similar to iso-8859-1
1 cp863 similar to iso-8859-8
1 cp865 similar to iso-8859-1
1 cp866 similar to iso-8859-5
1 cp869 similar to iso-8859-7
1 cp874 Thai
1 cp1250 Czech, Polish, etc.
1 cp1251 Cyrillic
1 cp1253 Greek
1 cp1254 Turkish
1 cp1255 Hebrew
1 cp1256 Arabic
1 cp1257 Baltic
1 cp1258 Vietnamese
1 cp{number} MS-Windows: any installed single-byte codepage
2 cp932 Japanese (Windows only)
2 euc-jp Japanese (Unix only)
2 sjis Japanese (Unix only)
2 cp949 Korean (Unix and Windows)
2 euc-kr Korean (Unix only)
2 cp936 simplified Chinese (Windows only)
2 euc-cn simplified Chinese (Unix only)
2 cp950 traditional Chinese (on Unix alias for big5)
2 big5 traditional Chinese (on Windows alias for cp950)
2 euc-tw traditional Chinese (Unix only)
2 2byte-{name} Unix: any double-byte encoding (Vim specific name)
2 cp{number} MS-Windows: any installed double-byte codepage
u utf-8 32 bit UTF-8 encoded Unicode (ISO/IEC 10646-1)
u ucs-2 16 bit UCS-2 encoded Unicode (ISO/IEC 10646-1)
u ucs-2le like ucs-2, little endian
u utf-16 ucs-2 extended with double-words for more characters
u utf-16le like utf-16, little endian
u ucs-4 32 bit UCS-4 encoded Unicode (ISO/IEC 10646-1)
u ucs-4le like ucs-4, little endian
The {name} can be any encoding name that your system supports. It is passed
to iconv() to convert between the encoding of the file and the current locale.
For MS-Windows "cp{number}" means using codepage {number}.
Examples:
:set encoding=8bit-cp1252
:set encoding=2byte-cp932
The MS-Windows codepage 1252 is very similar to latin1. For practical reasons
the same encoding is used and it's called latin1. 'isprint' can be used to
display the characters 0x80 - 0xA0 or not.
Several aliases can be used, they are translated to one of the names above.
An incomplete list:
1 ansi same as latin1 (obsolete, for backward compatibility)
2 japan Japanese: on Unix "euc-jp", on MS-Windows cp932
2 korea Korean: on Unix "euc-kr", on MS-Windows cp949
2 prc simplified Chinese: on Unix "euc-cn", on MS-Windows cp936
2 chinese same as "prc"
2 taiwan traditional Chinese: on Unix "euc-tw", on MS-Windows cp950
u utf8 same as utf-8
u unicode same as ucs-2
u ucs2be same as ucs-2 (big endian)
u ucs-2be same as ucs-2 (big endian)
u ucs-4be same as ucs-4 (big endian)
u utf-32 same as ucs-4
u utf-32le same as ucs-4le
default stands for the default value of 'encoding', depends on the
environment
For the UCS codes the byte order matters. This is tricky, use UTF-8 whenever
you can. The default is to use big-endian (most significant byte comes
first):
name bytes char
ucs-2 11 22 1122
ucs-2le 22 11 1122
ucs-4 11 22 33 44 11223344
ucs-4le 44 33 22 11 11223344
On MS-Windows systems you often want to use "ucs-2le", because it uses little
endian UCS-2.
There are a few encodings which are similar, but not exactly the same. Vim
treats them as if they were different encodings, so that conversion will be
done when needed. You might want to use the similar name to avoid conversion
or when conversion is not possible:
cp932, shift-jis, sjis
cp936, euc-cn
*encoding-table*
Normally 'encoding' is equal to your current locale and 'termencoding' is
empty. This means that your keyboard and display work with characters encoded
in your current locale, and Vim uses the same characters internally.
You can make Vim use characters in a different encoding by setting the
'encoding' option to a different value. Since the keyboard and display still
use the current locale, conversion needs to be done. The 'termencoding' then
takes over the value of the current locale, so Vim converts between 'encoding'
and 'termencoding'. Example:
:let &termencoding = &encoding
:set encoding=utf-8
However, not all combinations of values are possible. The table below tells
you how each of the nine combinations works. This is further restricted by
not all conversions being possible, iconv() being present, etc. Since this
depends on the system used, no detailed list can be given.
('tenc' is the short name for 'termencoding' and 'enc' short for 'encoding')
'tenc' 'enc' remark
8bit 8bit Works. When 'termencoding' is different from
'encoding' typing and displaying may be wrong for some
characters, Vim does NOT perform conversion (set
'encoding' to "utf-8" to get this).
8bit 2byte MS-Windows: works for all codepages installed on your
system; you can only type 8bit characters;
Other systems: does NOT work.
8bit Unicode Works, but only 8bit characters can be typed directly
(others through digraphs, keymaps, etc.); in a
terminal you can only see 8bit characters; the GUI can
show all characters that the 'guifont' supports.
2byte 8bit Works, but typing non-ASCII characters might
be a problem.
2byte 2byte MS-Windows: works for all codepages installed on your
system; typing characters might be a problem when
locale is different from 'encoding'.
Other systems: Only works when 'termencoding' is equal
to 'encoding', you might as well leave it empty.
2byte Unicode works, Vim will translate typed characters.
Unicode 8bit works (unusual)
Unicode 2byte does NOT work
Unicode Unicode works very well (leaving 'termencoding' empty works
the same way, because all Unicode is handled
internally as UTF-8)
CONVERSION *charset-conversion*
Vim will automatically convert from one to another encoding in several places:
- When reading a file and 'fileencoding' is different from 'encoding'
- When writing a file and 'fileencoding' is different from 'encoding'
- When displaying characters and 'termencoding' is different from 'encoding'
- When reading input and 'termencoding' is different from 'encoding'
- When displaying messages and the encoding used for LC_MESSAGES differs from
'encoding' (requires a gettext version that supports this).
- When reading a Vim script where |:scriptencoding| is different from
'encoding'.
- When reading or writing a |viminfo| file.
Most of these require the |+iconv| feature. Conversion for reading and
writing files may also be specified with the 'charconvert' option.
Useful utilities for converting the charset:
All: iconv
GNU iconv can convert most encodings. Unicode is used as the
intermediate encoding, which allows conversion from and to all other
encodings. See http://www.gnu.org/directory/libiconv.html.
Japanese: nkf
Nkf is "Network Kanji code conversion Filter". One of the most unique
facility of nkf is the guess of the input Kanji code. So, you don't
need to know what the inputting file's |charset| is. When convert to
EUC-JP from ISO-2022-JP or Shift_JIS, simply do the following command
in Vim:
:%!nkf -e
Nkf can be found at:
http://www.sfc.wide.ad.jp/~max/FreeBSD/ports/distfiles/nkf-1.62.tar.gz
Chinese: hc
Hc is "Hanzi Converter". Hc convert a GB file to a Big5 file, or Big5
file to GB file. Hc can be found at:
ftp://ftp.cuhk.hk/pub/chinese/ifcss/software/unix/convert/hc-30.tar.gz
Korean: hmconv
Hmconv is Korean code conversion utility especially for E-mail. It can
convert between EUC-KR and ISO-2022-KR. Hmconv can be found at:
ftp://ftp.kaist.ac.kr/pub/hangul/code/hmconv/
Multilingual: lv
Lv is a Powerful Multilingual File Viewer. And it can be worked as
|charset| converter. Supported |charset|: ISO-2022-CN, ISO-2022-JP,
ISO-2022-KR, EUC-CN, EUC-JP, EUC-KR, EUC-TW, UTF-7, UTF-8, ISO-8859
series, Shift_JIS, Big5 and HZ. Lv can be found at:
http://www.ff.iij4u.or.jp/~nrt/freeware/lv4495.tar.gz
*mbyte-conversion*
When reading and writing files in an encoding different from 'encoding',
conversion needs to be done. These conversions are supported:
- All conversions between Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1), UTF-8, UCS-2 and UCS-4 are
handled internally.
- For MS-Windows, when 'encoding' is a Unicode encoding, conversion from and
to any codepage should work.
- Conversion specified with 'charconvert'
- Conversion with the iconv library, if it is available.
Old versions of GNU iconv() may cause the conversion to fail (they
request a very large buffer, more than Vim is willing to provide).
Try getting another iconv() implementation.
*iconv-dynamic*
On MS-Windows Vim can be compiled with the |+iconv/dyn| feature. This means
Vim will search for the "iconv.dll" and "libiconv.dll" libraries. When
neither of them can be found Vim will still work but some conversions won't be
possible.
==============================================================================
4. Using a terminal *mbyte-terminal*
The GUI fully supports multi-byte characters. It is also possible in a
terminal, if the terminal supports the same encoding that Vim uses. Thus this
is less flexible.
For example, you can run Vim in a xterm with added multi-byte support and/or
|XIM|. Examples are kterm (Kanji term) and hanterm (for Korean), Eterm
(Enlightened terminal) and rxvt.
If your terminal does not support the right encoding, you can set the
'termencoding' option. Vim will then convert the typed characters from
'termencoding' to 'encoding'. And displayed text will be converted from
'encoding' to 'termencoding'. If the encoding supported by the terminal
doesn't include all the characters that Vim uses, this leads to lost
characters. This may mess up the display. If you use a terminal that
supports Unicode, such as the xterm mentioned below, it should work just fine,
since nearly every character set can be converted to Unicode without loss of
information.
UTF-8 IN XFREE86 XTERM *UTF8-xterm*
This is a short explanation of how to use UTF-8 character encoding in the
xterm that comes with XFree86 by Thomas Dickey (text by Markus Kuhn).
Get the latest xterm version which has now UTF-8 support:
http://invisible-island.net/xterm/xterm.html
Compile it with "./configure --enable-wide-chars ; make"
Also get the ISO 10646-1 version of various fonts, which is available on
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/download/ucs-fonts.tar.gz
and install the font as described in the README file.
Now start xterm with
xterm -u8 -fn -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1
or, for bigger character:
xterm -u8 -fn -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1
and you will have a working UTF-8 terminal emulator. Try both
cat utf-8-demo.txt
vim utf-8-demo.txt
with the demo text that comes with ucs-fonts.tar.gz in order to see
whether there are any problems with UTF-8 in your xterm.
For Vim you may need to set 'encoding' to "utf-8".
==============================================================================
5. Fonts on X11 *mbyte-fonts-X11*
Unfortunately, using fonts in X11 is complicated. The name of a single-byte
font is a long string. For multi-byte fonts we need several of these...
Note: Most of this is no longer relevant for GTK+ 2. Selecting a font via
its XLFD is not supported; see 'guifont' for an example of how to
set the font. Do yourself a favor and ignore the |XLFD| and |xfontset|
sections below.
First of all, Vim only accepts fixed-width fonts for displaying text. You
cannot use proportionally spaced fonts. This excludes many of the available
(and nicer looking) fonts. However, for menus and tooltips any font can be
used.
Note that Display and Input are independent. It is possible to see your
language even though you have no input method for it.
You should get a default font for menus and tooltips that works, but it might
be ugly. Read the following to find out how to select a better font.
X LOGICAL FONT DESCRIPTION (XLFD)
*XLFD*
XLFD is the X font name and contains the information about the font size,
charset, etc. The name is in this format:
FOUNDRY-FAMILY-WEIGHT-SLANT-WIDTH-STYLE-PIXEL-POINT-X-Y-SPACE-AVE-CR-CE
Each field means:
- FOUNDRY: FOUNDRY field. The company that created the font.
- FAMILY: FAMILY_NAME field. Basic font family name. (helvetica, gothic,
times, etc)
- WEIGHT: WEIGHT_NAME field. How thick the letters are. (light, medium,
bold, etc)
- SLANT: SLANT field.
r: Roman (no slant)
i: Italic
o: Oblique
ri: Reverse Italic
ro: Reverse Oblique
ot: Other
number: Scaled font
- WIDTH: SETWIDTH_NAME field. Width of characters. (normal, condensed,
narrow, double wide)
- STYLE: ADD_STYLE_NAME field. Extra info to describe font. (Serif, Sans
Serif, Informal, Decorated, etc)
- PIXEL: PIXEL_SIZE field. Height, in pixels, of characters.
- POINT: POINT_SIZE field. Ten times height of characters in points.
- X: RESOLUTION_X field. X resolution (dots per inch).
- Y: RESOLUTION_Y field. Y resolution (dots per inch).
- SPACE: SPACING field.
p: Proportional
m: Monospaced
c: CharCell
- AVE: AVERAGE_WIDTH field. Ten times average width in pixels.
- CR: CHARSET_REGISTRY field. The name of the charset group.
- CE: CHARSET_ENCODING field. The rest of the charset name. For some
charsets, such as JIS X 0208, if this field is 0, code points has
the same value as GL, and GR if 1.
For example, in case of a 14 dots font corresponding to JIS X 0208, it is
written like:
-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--16-110-100-100-c-160-jisx0208.1990-0
X FONTSET
*fontset* *xfontset*
A single-byte charset is typically associated with one font. For multi-byte
charsets a combination of fonts is often used. This means that one group of
characters are used from one font and another group from another font (which
might be double wide). This collection of fonts is called a fontset.
Which fonts are required in a fontset depends on the current locale. X
windows maintains a table of which groups of characters are required for a
locale. You have to specify all the fonts that a locale requires in the
'guifontset' option.
NOTE: The fontset always uses the current locale, even though 'encoding' may
be set to use a different charset. In that situation you might want to use
'guifont' and 'guifontwide' instead of 'guifontset'.
Example:
|charset| language "groups of characters"
GB2312 Chinese (simplified) ISO-8859-1 and GB 2312
Big5 Chinese (traditional) ISO-8859-1 and Big5
CNS-11643 Chinese (traditional) ISO-8859-1, CNS 11643-1 and CNS 11643-2
EUC-JP Japanese JIS X 0201 and JIS X 0208
EUC-KR Korean ISO-8859-1 and KS C 5601 (KS X 1001)
You can search for fonts using the xlsfonts command. For example, when you're
searching for a font for KS C 5601:
xlsfonts | grep ksc5601
This is complicated and confusing. You might want to consult the X-Windows
documentation if there is something you don't understand.
*base_font_name_list*
When you have found the names of the fonts you want to use, you need to set
the 'guifontset' option. You specify the list by concatenating the font names
and putting a comma in between them.
For example, when you use the ja_JP.eucJP locale, this requires JIS X 0201
and JIS X 0208. You could supply a list of fonts that explicitly specifies
the charsets, like:
:set guifontset=-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--14-130-75-75-c-140-jisx0208.1983-0,
\-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--14-130-75-75-c-70-jisx0201.1976-0
Alternatively, you can supply a base font name list that omits the charset
name, letting X-Windows select font characters required for the locale. For
example:
:set guifontset=-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--14-130-75-75-c-140,
\-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--14-130-75-75-c-70
Alternatively, you can supply a single base font name that allows X-Windows to
select from all available fonts. For example:
:set guifontset=-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--14-*
Alternatively, you can specify alias names. See the fonts.alias file in the
fonts directory (e.g., /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/). For example:
:set guifontset=k14,r14
*E253*
Note that in East Asian fonts, the standard character cell is square. When
mixing a Latin font and an East Asian font, the East Asian font width should
be twice the Latin font width.
If 'guifontset' is not empty, the "font" argument of the |:highlight| command
is also interpreted as a fontset. For example, you should use for
highlighting:
:hi Comment font=english_font,your_font
If you use a wrong "font" argument you will get an error message.
Also make sure that you set 'guifontset' before setting fonts for highlight
groups.
USING RESOURCE FILES
Instead of specifying 'guifontset', you can set X11 resources and Vim will
pick them up. This is only for people who know how X resource files work.
For Motif and Athena insert these three lines in your $HOME/.Xdefaults file:
Vim.font: |base_font_name_list|
Vim*fontSet: |base_font_name_list|
Vim*fontList: your_language_font
Note: Vim.font is for text area.
Vim*fontSet is for menu.
Vim*fontList is for menu (for Motif GUI)
For example, when you are using Japanese and a 14 dots font,
Vim.font: -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--14-*
Vim*fontSet: -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--14-*
Vim*fontList: -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--14-*
or:
Vim*font: k14,r14
Vim*fontSet: k14,r14
Vim*fontList: k14,r14
To have them take effect immediately you will have to do
xrdb -merge ~/.Xdefaults
Otherwise you will have to stop and restart the X server before the changes
take effect.
The GTK+ version of GUI Vim does not use .Xdefaults, use ~/.gtkrc instead.
The default mostly works OK. But for the menus you might have to change
it. Example:
style "default"
{
fontset="-*-*-medium-r-normal--14-*-*-*-c-*-*-*"
}
widget_class "*" style "default"
==============================================================================
6. Fonts on MS-Windows *mbyte-fonts-MSwin*
The simplest is to use the font dialog to select fonts and try them out. You
can find this at the "Edit/Select Font..." menu. Once you find a font name
that works well you can use this command to see its name:
:set guifont
Then add a command to your |gvimrc| file to set 'guifont':
:set guifont=courier_new:h12
==============================================================================
7. Input on X11 *mbyte-XIM*
X INPUT METHOD (XIM) BACKGROUND *XIM* *xim* *x-input-method*
XIM is an international input module for X. There are two kinds of structures,
Xlib unit type and |IM-server| (Input-Method server) type. |IM-server| type
is suitable for complex input, such as CJK.
- IM-server
*IM-server*
In |IM-server| type input structures, the input event is handled by either
of the two ways: FrontEnd system and BackEnd system. In the FrontEnd
system, input events are snatched by the |IM-server| first, then |IM-server|
give the application the result of input. On the other hand, the BackEnd
system works reverse order. MS Windows adopt BackEnd system. In X, most of
|IM-server|s adopt FrontEnd system. The demerit of BackEnd system is the
large overhead in communication, but it provides safe synchronization with
no restrictions on applications.
For example, there are xwnmo and kinput2 Japanese |IM-server|, both are
FrontEnd system. Xwnmo is distributed with Wnn (see below), kinput2 can be
found at: ftp://ftp.sra.co.jp/pub/x11/kinput2/
For Chinese, there's a great XIM server named "xcin", you can input both
Traditional and Simplified Chinese characters. And it can accept other
locale if you make a correct input table. Xcin can be found at:
http://cle.linux.org.tw/xcin/
Others are scim: http://scim.freedesktop.org/ and fcitx:
http://www.fcitx.org/
- Conversion Server
*conversion-server*
Some system needs additional server: conversion server. Most of Japanese
|IM-server|s need it, Kana-Kanji conversion server. For Chinese inputting,
it depends on the method of inputting, in some methods, PinYin or ZhuYin to
HanZi conversion server is needed. For Korean inputting, if you want to
input Hanja, Hangul-Hanja conversion server is needed.
For example, the Japanese inputting process is divided into 2 steps. First
we pre-input Hira-gana, second Kana-Kanji conversion. There are so many
Kanji characters (6349 Kanji characters are defined in JIS X 0208) and the
number of Hira-gana characters are 76. So, first, we pre-input text as
pronounced in Hira-gana, second, we convert Hira-gana to Kanji or Kata-Kana,
if needed. There are some Kana-Kanji conversion server: jserver
(distributed with Wnn, see below) and canna. Canna could be found at:
ftp://ftp.nec.co.jp/pub/Canna/ no longer works.
There is a good input system: Wnn4.2. Wnn 4.2 contains,
xwnmo (|IM-server|)
jserver (Japanese Kana-Kanji conversion server)
cserver (Chinese PinYin or ZhuYin to simplified HanZi conversion server)
tserver (Chinese PinYin or ZhuYin to traditional HanZi conversion server)
kserver (Hangul-Hanja conversion server)
Wnn 4.2 for several systems can be found at various places on the internet.
Use the RPM or port for your system.
- Input Style
*xim-input-style*
When inputting CJK, there are four areas:
1. The area to display of the input while it is being composed
2. The area to display the currently active input mode.
3. The area to display the next candidate for the selection.
4. The area to display other tools.
The third area is needed when converting. For example, in Japanese
inputting, multiple Kanji characters could have the same pronunciation, so
a sequence of Hira-gana characters could map to a distinct sequence of Kanji
characters.
The first and second areas are defined in international input of X with the
names of "Preedit Area", "Status Area" respectively. The third and fourth
areas are not defined and are left to be managed by the |IM-server|. In the
international input, four input styles have been defined using combinations
of Preedit Area and Status Area: |OnTheSpot|, |OffTheSpot|, |OverTheSpot|
and |Root|.
Currently, GUI Vim supports three styles, |OverTheSpot|, |OffTheSpot| and
|Root|.
*. on-the-spot *OnTheSpot*
Preedit Area and Status Area are performed by the client application in
the area of application. The client application is directed by the
|IM-server| to display all pre-edit data at the location of text
insertion. The client registers callbacks invoked by the input method
during pre-editing.
*. over-the-spot *OverTheSpot*
Status Area is created in a fixed position within the area of application,
in case of Vim, the position is the additional status line. Preedit Area
is made at present input position of application. The input method
displays pre-edit data in a window which it brings up directly over the
text insertion position.
*. off-the-spot *OffTheSpot*
Preedit Area and Status Area are performed in the area of application, in
case of Vim, the area is additional status line. The client application
provides display windows for the pre-edit data to the input method which
displays into them directly.
*. root-window *Root*
Preedit Area and Status Area are outside of the application. The input
method displays all pre-edit data in a separate area of the screen in a
window specific to the input method.
USING XIM *multibyte-input* *E284* *E286* *E287* *E288*
*E285* *E291* *E292* *E290* *E289*
Note that Display and Input are independent. It is possible to see your
language even though you have no input method for it. But when your Display
method doesn't match your Input method, the text will be displayed wrong.
Note: You can not use IM unless you specify 'guifontset'.
Therefore, Latin users, you have to also use 'guifontset'
if you use IM.
To input your language you should run the |IM-server| which supports your
language and |conversion-server| if needed.
The next 3 lines should be put in your ~/.Xdefaults file. They are common for
all X applications which uses |XIM|. If you already use |XIM|, you can skip
this.
*international: True
*.inputMethod: your_input_server_name
*.preeditType: your_input_style
input_server_name is your |IM-server| name (check your |IM-server|
manual).
your_input_style is one of |OverTheSpot|, |OffTheSpot|, |Root|. See
also |xim-input-style|.
*international may not necessary if you use X11R6.
*.inputMethod and *.preeditType are optional if you use X11R6.
For example, when you are using kinput2 as |IM-server|,
*international: True
*.inputMethod: kinput2
*.preeditType: OverTheSpot
When using |OverTheSpot|, GUI Vim always connects to the IM Server even in
Normal mode, so you can input your language with commands like "f" and "r".
But when using one of the other two methods, GUI Vim connects to the IM Server
only if it is not in Normal mode.
If your IM Server does not support |OverTheSpot|, and if you want to use your
language with some Normal mode command like "f" or "r", then you should use a
localized xterm or an xterm which supports |XIM|
If needed, you can set the XMODIFIERS environment variable:
sh: export XMODIFIERS="@im=input_server_name"
csh: setenv XMODIFIERS "@im=input_server_name"
For example, when you are using kinput2 as |IM-server| and sh,
export XMODIFIERS="@im=kinput2"
FULLY CONTROLLED XIM
You can fully control XIM, like with IME of MS-Windows (see |multibyte-ime|).
This is currently only available for the GTK GUI.
Before using fully controlled XIM, one setting is required. Set the
'imactivatekey' option to the key that is used for the activation of the input
method. For example, when you are using kinput2 + canna as IM Server, the
activation key is probably Shift+Space:
:set imactivatekey=S-space
See 'imactivatekey' for the format.
==============================================================================
8. Input on MS-Windows *mbyte-IME*
(Windows IME support) *multibyte-ime* *IME*
{only works Windows GUI and compiled with the |+multi_byte_ime| feature}
To input multibyte characters on Windows, you can use an Input Method Editor
(IME). In process of your editing text, you must switch status (on/off) of
IME many many many times. Because IME with status on is hooking all of your
key inputs, you cannot input 'j', 'k', or almost all of keys to Vim directly.
This |+multi_byte_ime| feature help this. It reduce times of switch status of
IME manually. In normal mode, there are almost no need working IME, even
editing multibyte text. So exiting insert mode with ESC, Vim memorize last
status of IME and force turn off IME. When re-enter insert mode, Vim revert
IME status to that memorized automatically.
This works on not only insert-normal mode, but also search-command input and
replace mode.
The options 'iminsert', 'imsearch' and 'imcmdline' can be used to chose
the different input methods or disable them temporarily.
WHAT IS IME
IME is a part of East asian version Windows. That helps you to input
multibyte character. English and other language version Windows does not
have any IME. (Also there is no need usually.) But there is one that
called Microsoft Global IME. Global IME is a part of Internet Explorer
4.0 or above. You can get more information about Global IME, at below
URL.
WHAT IS GLOBAL IME *global-ime*
Global IME makes capability to input Chinese, Japanese, and Korean text
into Vim buffer on any language version of Windows 98, Windows 95, and
Windows NT 4.0.
On Windows 2000 and XP it should work as well (without downloading). On
Windows 2000 Professional, Global IME is built in, and the Input Locales
can be added through Control Panel/Regional Options/Input Locales.
Please see below URL for detail of Global IME. You can also find various
language version of Global IME at same place.
- Global IME detailed information.
http://search.microsoft.com/results.aspx?q=global+ime
- Active Input Method Manager (Global IME)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa741221v=VS.85.aspx
Support for Global IME is an experimental feature.
NOTE: For IME to work you must make sure the input locales of your language
are added to your system. The exact location of this depends on the version
of Windows you use. For example, on my Windows 2000 box:
1. Control Panel
2. Regional Options
3. Input Locales Tab
4. Add Installed input locales -> Chinese(PRC)
The default is still English (United Stated)
Cursor color when IME or XIM is on *CursorIM*
There is a little cute feature for IME. Cursor can indicate status of IME
by changing its color. Usually status of IME was indicated by little icon
at a corner of desktop (or taskbar). It is not easy to verify status of
IME. But this feature help this.
This works in the same way when using XIM.
You can select cursor color when status is on by using highlight group
CursorIM. For example, add these lines to your YXXYgvimrc|:
if has('multi_byte_ime')
highlight Cursor guifg=NONE guibg=Green
highlight CursorIM guifg=NONE guibg=Purple
endif
Cursor color with off IME is green. And purple cursor indicates that
status is on.
==============================================================================
9. Input with a keymap *mbyte-keymap*
When the keyboard doesn't produce the characters you want to enter in your
text, you can use the 'keymap' option. This will translate one or more
(English) characters to another (non-English) character. This only happens
when typing text, not when typing Vim commands. This avoids having to switch
between two keyboard settings.
The value of the 'keymap' option specifies a keymap file to use. The name of
this file is one of these two:
keymap/{keymap}_{encoding}.vim
keymap/{keymap}.vim
Here {keymap} is the value of the 'keymap' option and {encoding} of the
'encoding' option. The file name with the {encoding} included is tried first.
'runtimepath' is used to find these files. To see an overview of all
available keymap files, use this:
:echo globpath(&rtp, "keymap/*.vim")
In Insert and Command-line mode you can use CTRL-^ to toggle between using the
keyboard map or not. |i_CTRL-^| |c_CTRL-^|
This flag is remembered for Insert mode with the 'iminsert' option. When
leaving and entering Insert mode the previous value is used. The same value
is also used for commands that take a single character argument, like |f| and
|r|.
For Command-line mode the flag is NOT remembered. You are expected to type an
Ex command first, which is ASCII.
For typing search patterns the 'imsearch' option is used. It can be set to
use the same value as for 'iminsert'.
*lCursor*
It is possible to give the GUI cursor another color when the language mappings
are being used. This is disabled by default, to avoid that the cursor becomes
invisible when you use a non-standard background color. Here is an example to
use a brightly colored cursor:
:highlight Cursor guifg=NONE guibg=Green
:highlight lCursor guifg=NONE guibg=Cyan
*keymap-file-format* *:loadk* *:loadkeymap* *E105* *E791*
The keymap file looks something like this:
" Maintainer: name <email@address>
" Last Changed: 2001 Jan 1
let b:keymap_name = "short"
loadkeymap
a A
b B comment
The lines starting with a " are comments and will be ignored. Blank lines are
also ignored. The lines with the mappings may have a comment after the useful
text.
The "b:keymap_name" can be set to a short name, which will be shown in the
status line. The idea is that this takes less room than the value of
'keymap', which might be long to distinguish between different languages,
keyboards and encodings.
The actual mappings are in the lines below "loadkeymap". In the example "a"
is mapped to "A" and "b" to "B". Thus the first item is mapped to the second
item. This is done for each line, until the end of the file.
These items are exactly the same as what can be used in a |:lnoremap| command,
using "<buffer>" to make the mappings local to the buffer..
You can check the result with this command:
:lmap
The two items must be separated by white space. You cannot include white
space inside an item, use the special names "<Tab>" and "<Space>" instead.
The length of the two items together must not exceed 200 bytes.
It's possible to have more than one character in the first column. This works
like a dead key. Example:
'a á
Since Vim doesn't know if the next character after a quote is really an "a",
it will wait for the next character. To be able to insert a single quote,
also add this line:
'' '
Since the mapping is defined with |:lnoremap| the resulting quote will not be
used for the start of another character.
The "accents" keymap uses this. *keymap-accents*
Although it's possible to have more than one character in the second column,
this is unusual. But you can use various ways to specify the character:
A a literal character
A <char-97> decimal value
A <char-0x61> hexadecimal value
A <char-0141> octal value
x <Space> special key name
The characters are assumed to be encoded for the current value of 'encoding'.
It's possible to use ":scriptencoding" when all characters are given
literally. That doesn't work when using the <char-> construct, because the
conversion is done on the keymap file, not on the resulting character.
The lines after "loadkeymap" are interpreted with 'cpoptions' set to "C".
This means that continuation lines are not used and a backslash has a special
meaning in the mappings. Examples:
" a comment line
\" x maps " to x
\\ y maps \ to y
If you write a keymap file that will be useful for others, consider submitting
it to the Vim maintainer for inclusion in the distribution:
<maintainer@vim.org>
HEBREW KEYMAP *keymap-hebrew*
This file explains what characters are available in UTF-8 and CP1255 encodings,
and what the keymaps are to get those characters:
glyph encoding keymap
Char utf-8 cp1255 hebrew hebrewp name
א 0x5d0 0xe0 t a 'alef
ב 0x5d1 0xe1 c b bet
ג 0x5d2 0xe2 d g gimel
ד 0x5d3 0xe3 s d dalet
ה 0x5d4 0xe4 v h he
ו 0x5d5 0xe5 u v vav
ז 0x5d6 0xe6 z z zayin
ח 0x5d7 0xe7 j j het
ט 0x5d8 0xe8 y T tet
י 0x5d9 0xe9 h y yod
ך 0x5da 0xea l K kaf sofit
כ 0x5db 0xeb f k kaf
ל 0x5dc 0xec k l lamed
ם 0x5dd 0xed o M mem sofit
מ 0x5de 0xee n m mem
ן 0x5df 0xef i N nun sofit
נ 0x5e0 0xf0 b n nun
ס 0x5e1 0xf1 x s samech
ע 0x5e2 0xf2 g u `ayin
ף 0x5e3 0xf3 ; P pe sofit
פ 0x5e4 0xf4 p p pe
ץ 0x5e5 0xf5 . X tsadi sofit
צ 0x5e6 0xf6 m x tsadi
ק 0x5e7 0xf7 e q qof
ר 0x5e8 0xf8 r r resh
ש 0x5e9 0xf9 a w shin
ת 0x5ea 0xfa , t tav
Vowel marks and special punctuation:
הְ 0x5b0 0xc0 A: A: sheva
הֱ 0x5b1 0xc1 HE HE hataf segol
הֲ 0x5b2 0xc2 HA HA hataf patah
הֳ 0x5b3 0xc3 HO HO hataf qamats
הִ 0x5b4 0xc4 I I hiriq
הֵ 0x5b5 0xc5 AY AY tsere
הֶ 0x5b6 0xc6 E E segol
הַ 0x5b7 0xc7 AA AA patah
הָ 0x5b8 0xc8 AO AO qamats
הֹ 0x5b9 0xc9 O O holam
הֻ 0x5bb 0xcb U U qubuts
כּ 0x5bc 0xcc D D dagesh
הֽ 0x5bd 0xcd ]T ]T meteg
ה־ 0x5be 0xce ]Q ]Q maqaf
בֿ 0x5bf 0xcf ]R ]R rafe
ב׀ 0x5c0 0xd0 ]p ]p paseq
שׁ 0x5c1 0xd1 SR SR shin-dot
שׂ 0x5c2 0xd2 SL SL sin-dot
׃ 0x5c3 0xd3 ]P ]P sof-pasuq
װ 0x5f0 0xd4 VV VV double-vav
ױ 0x5f1 0xd5 VY VY vav-yod
ײ 0x5f2 0xd6 YY YY yod-yod
The following are only available in utf-8
Cantillation marks:
glyph
Char utf-8 hebrew name
ב֑ 0x591 C: etnahta
ב֒ 0x592 Cs segol
ב֓ 0x593 CS shalshelet
ב֔ 0x594 Cz zaqef qatan
ב֕ 0x595 CZ zaqef gadol
ב֖ 0x596 Ct tipeha
ב֗ 0x597 Cr revia
ב֘ 0x598 Cq zarqa
ב֙ 0x599 Cp pashta
ב֚ 0x59a C! yetiv
ב֛ 0x59b Cv tevir
ב֜ 0x59c Cg geresh
ב֝ 0x59d C* geresh qadim
ב֞ 0x59e CG gershayim
ב֟ 0x59f CP qarnei-parah
ב֪ 0x5aa Cy yerach-ben-yomo
ב֫ 0x5ab Co ole
ב֬ 0x5ac Ci iluy
ב֭ 0x5ad Cd dehi
ב֮ 0x5ae Cn zinor
ב֯ 0x5af CC masora circle
Combining forms:
ﬠ 0xfb20 X` Alternative `ayin
ﬡ 0xfb21 X' Alternative 'alef
ﬢ 0xfb22 X-d Alternative dalet
ﬣ 0xfb23 X-h Alternative he
ﬤ 0xfb24 X-k Alternative kaf
ﬥ 0xfb25 X-l Alternative lamed
ﬦ 0xfb26 X-m Alternative mem-sofit
ﬧ 0xfb27 X-r Alternative resh
ﬨ 0xfb28 X-t Alternative tav
﬩ 0xfb29 X-+ Alternative plus
שׁ 0xfb2a XW shin+shin-dot
שׂ 0xfb2b Xw shin+sin-dot
שּׁ 0xfb2c X..W shin+shin-dot+dagesh
שּׂ 0xfb2d X..w shin+sin-dot+dagesh
אַ 0xfb2e XA alef+patah
אָ 0xfb2f XO alef+qamats
אּ 0xfb30 XI alef+hiriq (mapiq)
בּ 0xfb31 X.b bet+dagesh
גּ 0xfb32 X.g gimel+dagesh
דּ 0xfb33 X.d dalet+dagesh
הּ 0xfb34 X.h he+dagesh
וּ 0xfb35 Xu vav+dagesh
זּ 0xfb36 X.z zayin+dagesh
טּ 0xfb38 X.T tet+dagesh
יּ 0xfb39 X.y yud+dagesh
ךּ 0xfb3a X.K kaf sofit+dagesh
כּ 0xfb3b X.k kaf+dagesh
לּ 0xfb3c X.l lamed+dagesh
מּ 0xfb3e X.m mem+dagesh
נּ 0xfb40 X.n nun+dagesh
סּ 0xfb41 X.s samech+dagesh
ףּ 0xfb43 X.P pe sofit+dagesh
פּ 0xfb44 X.p pe+dagesh
צּ 0xfb46 X.x tsadi+dagesh
קּ 0xfb47 X.q qof+dagesh
רּ 0xfb48 X.r resh+dagesh
שּ 0xfb49 X.w shin+dagesh
תּ 0xfb4a X.t tav+dagesh
וֹ 0xfb4b Xo vav+holam
בֿ 0xfb4c XRb bet+rafe
כֿ 0xfb4d XRk kaf+rafe
פֿ 0xfb4e XRp pe+rafe
ﭏ 0xfb4f Xal alef-lamed
==============================================================================
10. Using UTF-8 *mbyte-utf8* *UTF-8* *utf-8* *utf8*
*Unicode* *unicode*
The Unicode character set was designed to include all characters from other
character sets. Therefore it is possible to write text in any language using
Unicode (with a few rarely used languages excluded). And it's mostly possible
to mix these languages in one file, which is impossible with other encodings.
Unicode can be encoded in several ways. The most popular one is UTF-8, which
uses one or more bytes for each character and is backwards compatible with
ASCII. On MS-Windows UTF-16 is also used (previously UCS-2), which uses
16-bit words. Vim can support all of these encodings, but always uses UTF-8
internally.
Vim has comprehensive UTF-8 support. It works well in:
- xterm with utf-8 support enabled
- Athena, Motif and GTK GUI
- MS-Windows GUI
- several other platforms
Double-width characters are supported. This works best with 'guifontwide' or
'guifontset'. When using only 'guifont' the wide characters are drawn in the
normal width and a space to fill the gap. Note that the 'guifontset' option
is no longer relevant in the GTK+ 2 GUI.
*bom-bytes*
When reading a file a BOM (Byte Order Mark) can be used to recognize the
Unicode encoding:
EF BB BF utf-8
FE FF utf-16 big endian
FF FE utf-16 little endian
00 00 FE FF utf-32 big endian
FF FE 00 00 utf-32 little endian
Utf-8 is the recommended encoding. Note that it's difficult to tell utf-16
and utf-32 apart. Utf-16 is often used on MS-Windows, utf-32 is not
widespread as file format.
*mbyte-combining* *mbyte-composing*
A composing or combining character is used to change the meaning of the
character before it. The combining characters are drawn on top of the
preceding character.
Up to two combining characters can be used by default. This can be changed
with the 'maxcombine' option.
When editing text a composing character is mostly considered part of the
preceding character. For example "x" will delete a character and its
following composing characters by default.
If the 'delcombine' option is on, then pressing 'x' will delete the combining
characters, one at a time, then the base character. But when inserting, you
type the first character and the following composing characters separately,
after which they will be joined. The "r" command will not allow you to type a
combining character, because it doesn't know one is coming. Use "R" instead.
Bytes which are not part of a valid UTF-8 byte sequence are handled like a
single character and displayed as <xx>, where "xx" is the hex value of the
byte.
Overlong sequences are not handled specially and displayed like a valid
character. However, search patterns may not match on an overlong sequence.
(an overlong sequence is where more bytes are used than required for the
character.) An exception is NUL (zero) which is displayed as "<00>".
In the file and buffer the full range of Unicode characters can be used (31
bits). However, displaying only works for 16 bit characters, and only for the
characters present in the selected font.
Useful commands:
- "ga" shows the decimal, hexadecimal and octal value of the character under
the cursor. If there are composing characters these are shown too. (If the
message is truncated, use ":messages").
- "g8" shows the bytes used in a UTF-8 character, also the composing
characters, as hex numbers.
- ":set encoding=utf-8 fileencodings=" forces using UTF-8 for all files. The
default is to use the current locale for 'encoding' and set 'fileencodings'
to automatically detect the encoding of a file.
STARTING VIM
If your current locale is in an utf-8 encoding, Vim will automatically start
in utf-8 mode.
If you are using another locale:
set encoding=utf-8
You might also want to select the font used for the menus. Unfortunately this
doesn't always work. See the system specific remarks below, and 'langmenu'.
USING UTF-8 IN X-Windows *utf-8-in-xwindows*
Note: This section does not apply to the GTK+ 2 GUI.
You need to specify a font to be used. For double-wide characters another
font is required, which is exactly twice as wide. There are three ways to do
this:
1. Set 'guifont' and let Vim find a matching 'guifontwide'
2. Set 'guifont' and 'guifontwide'
3. Set 'guifontset'
See the documentation for each option for details. Example:
:set guifont=-misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--15-140-75-75-c-90-iso10646-1
You might also want to set the font used for the menus. This only works for
Motif. Use the ":hi Menu font={fontname}" command for this. |:highlight|
TYPING UTF-8 *utf-8-typing*
If you are using X-Windows, you should find an input method that supports
utf-8.
If your system does not provide support for typing utf-8, you can use the
'keymap' feature. This allows writing a keymap file, which defines a utf-8
character as a sequence of ASCII characters. See |mbyte-keymap|.
Another method is to set the current locale to the language you want to use
and for which you have a XIM available. Then set 'termencoding' to that
language and Vim will convert the typed characters to 'encoding' for you.
If everything else fails, you can type any character as four hex bytes:
CTRL-V u 1234
"1234" is interpreted as a hex number. You must type four characters, prepend
a zero if necessary.
COMMAND ARGUMENTS *utf-8-char-arg*
Commands like |f|, |F|, |t| and |r| take an argument of one character. For
UTF-8 this argument may include one or two composing characters. These need
to be produced together with the base character, Vim doesn't wait for the next
character to be typed to find out if it is a composing character or not.
Using 'keymap' or |:lmap| is a nice way to type these characters.
The commands that search for a character in a line handle composing characters
as follows. When searching for a character without a composing character,
this will find matches in the text with or without composing characters. When
searching for a character with a composing character, this will only find
matches with that composing character. It was implemented this way, because
not everybody is able to type a composing character.
==============================================================================
11. Overview of options *mbyte-options*
These options are relevant for editing multi-byte files. Check the help in
options.txt for detailed information.
'encoding' Encoding used for the keyboard and display. It is also the
default encoding for files.
'fileencoding' Encoding of a file. When it's different from 'encoding'
conversion is done when reading or writing the file.
'fileencodings' List of possible encodings of a file. When opening a file
these will be tried and the first one that doesn't cause an
error is used for 'fileencoding'.
'charconvert' Expression used to convert files from one encoding to another.
'formatoptions' The 'm' flag can be included to have formatting break a line
at a multibyte character of 256 or higher. Thus is useful for
languages where a sequence of characters can be broken
anywhere.
'guifontset' The list of font names used for a multi-byte encoding. When
this option is not empty, it replaces 'guifont'.
'keymap' Specify the name of a keyboard mapping.
==============================================================================
Contributions specifically for the multi-byte features by:
Chi-Deok Hwang <hwang@mizi.co.kr>
SungHyun Nam <goweol@gmail.com>
K.Nagano <nagano@atese.advantest.co.jp>
Taro Muraoka <koron@tka.att.ne.jp>
Yasuhiro Matsumoto <mattn@mail.goo.ne.jp>
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