Text Input and Output dialog boxes

 

 

This dialog box appears when you select the Browse button menu / Reopen with encoding...menu or Browse button menu / Set text output options... 

In Text Comparisons or Text Edition, it enables you to change the encoding in which the current text document will be loaded or saved.  In Folder Comparisons, the options will applied on text files the software will try to open.

Specifying the loading encoding will compute again the comparison or reload the text file(s). Specifying the output encoding will check that the current output text is valid with respect to the chosen output encoding but will not touch the text file(s) yet.

• Options present in both dialog boxes
• • Allow approximations: allows the conversion algorithm (toward or from Unicode representation) to make some approximations, for example, Mac Roman encoding misses some characters of Windows Western page, these missing characters may not be extremely significant if you just compare files, or if you actually need the conversion to be done. The comparison tool will then show what are the actual differences because of the approximation (both in folder and text file modes).
  • Use these settings for all panels: the checkbox is present for comparison and merges only (not for single file view/edit mode). It allows you to specify the same options for all the panels in a single click.
  • Encoding: this is the encoding used to load or save files when no other rule apply. Note that in the save box, the encoding lists contains variant of Unicode format with (default) or without signature.
• Text input options dialog box
• • Ignore Unicode signature: in some circonstances, you may want to de-activate the automatic detection of Unicode signature, e.g. on files using these signatures for another purpose
• Text output options dialog box:
• • If the source files [...] have coherent detectable encoding, use deduced encoding: you may want to also generate files in a particular default encoding, however when a encoding was signaled by a signature (currently only Unicode signatures) or that the encoding used detectable structures (all UTF have quite remakable structures, only UTF-7 does not) you may want to keep it. It allows you to mix Unicode files with native encoding files in your folders without the risk of changing your Unicode files to native encoding when copying/merging them
  • Propose only choices ensuring safe re-loading given loading encoding options: this option allows you to limit the list of encodings to those which ensure you that when later re-loading the files they will be still be interpreted in the same way (for example in folder comparisons). If you prevented the interpretation of signature in Text input options dialog box, it will limit you to the default loading encoding for output. If you allowed the interpretation of signatures, it will allow you all Unicode signed encodings and the default loading encoding.
  • Line endings: this combo box allows you to specify whether you want to keep the line endings as-is (default) or whether you want to enforce them to a particular format (Unix, Mac, Windows). It allows you to copy seamlessly files between different OS. Note that the option applies during the save operation (not during edition).

Ellié Computing Merge supports around one hundred different character encodings among the mostly used. It is frequently tested against files from various encodings, if you have trouble with particular files and encodings please contact the support team by creating a support ticket.

Press F1 or click on the Help button while in this dialog box will show this topic.

See also

• Default encoding option in Edition Options.