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view runtime/doc/mbyte.txt @ 4307:166b3df562ea v7.3.903
updated for version 7.3.903
Problem: Crash on exit writing viminfo. (Ron Aaron)
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| author | Bram Moolenaar <bram@vim.org> |
|---|---|
| date | Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:14:22 +0200 |
| parents | 7ffc704cb7c1 |
| children | 605c9ce57ec3 |
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*mbyte.txt* For Vim version 7.3. Last change: 2012 Oct 06 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/lv/index.html *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 16 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 can be found at: http://canna.sourceforge.jp/ 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* *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/aa741221(v=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 |gvimrc|: > 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* The first column can also be in |<>| form: <C-c> Ctrl-C <A-c> Alt-c <A-C> Alt-C Note that the Alt mappings may not work, depending on your keyboard and terminal. 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 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> vim:tw=78:ts=8:ft=help:norl: