Comparison of Text Editors - Unicode and Other Character Encodings

Unicode and Other Character Encodings

To support specified character encoding, the editor must be able to load, save, view and edit text in the specific encoding and not destroy any characters. For UTF-8 and UTF-16, this requires internal 16-bit character support.

Partial support is indicated if: 1) the editor can only convert the character encoding to internal (8 bit) format for editing. 2) If some encodings are supported only in some platforms. 3) If the editor can only display specific character set (such as OEM) by loading corresponding font, but does not support keyboard entry for that character set.

Text editor support for some of the most common character encodings
ASCII ISO-8859 DOS (OEM) EBCDIC UTF-8 UTF-16
Acme Yes ? ? ? Yes No
AkelPad Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Alphatk Yes ? ? ? Yes Yes
Aquamacs Yes Yes Yes ? Yes Yes
BBEdit Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Bluefish Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
ConTEXT Yes Yes Partial No No No
Crimson Editor Yes Yes Partial No Partial No
Diakonos Yes ? ? ? Partial No
E Text Editor Yes ? ? ? Yes Yes
ed Yes ? ? ? Yes No
EditPlus Yes ? Yes ? Yes Yes
Editra Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
EmEditor Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Geany Yes Yes Yes ? Yes Yes
gedit Yes Yes ? ? Yes Yes
GNU Emacs Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Gobby Yes Yes No No Yes Yes
JED Yes Yes Yes ? Yes No
jEdit Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
JOE Yes ? ? ? Yes Yes
LE Yes ? ? ? Yes No
Kate Yes Yes ? ? Yes Yes
KEDIT Yes Yes Partial No No No
Komodo Edit Yes Yes No No Yes Yes
KWrite Yes ? ? ? Yes Yes
Metapad Yes Yes Partial No No No
mined Yes Yes Yes ? Yes Yes
MS-DOS Editor Yes ? Yes ? ? ?
Nano Yes ? ? ? Yes No
ASCII ISO-8859 DOS (OEM) EBCDIC UTF-8 UTF-16
NEdit Yes ? ? ? No No
Notepad Yes Yes Partial No Yes Yes
Notepad++ Yes Yes No plugin? Yes Yes
Notepad2 Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes
NoteTab Yes ? Yes Yes Partial Partial
nvi Yes ? ? ? Yes No
Pico Yes No No No No No
PolyEdit Yes ? ? ? Yes Yes
Programmer's Notepad Yes ? ? ? Yes Yes
PSPad Yes Yes Yes ? Yes Yes
Q10 ? ? ? ? ? ?
RJ TextEd Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
RText Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
SciTE Yes No No No Yes Yes
skEdit Yes ? ? ? Yes Yes
SlickEdit Yes ? ? ? Yes Yes
Smultron Yes ? ? ? Yes Yes
Source Insight Yes ? ? ? ? ?
SubEthaEdit Yes ? ? ? Yes Yes
Sublime Text ? ? ? ? ? ?
TED Notepad Yes ? ? ? Yes Yes
TextEdit Yes Yes ? ? Yes Yes
TextMate Yes Yes ? ? Yes Yes
TextPad Yes ? ? ? Partial Partial
TextWrangler Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
The SemWare Editor Yes Yes Partial plugin No No
UltraEdit Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
VEDIT Yes Yes Yes Yes Partial Partial
Vim Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes
XEmacs Yes Yes ? ? Yes Yes
Yi Yes ? ? ? Yes No
ASCII ISO-8859 DOS (OEM) EBCDIC UTF-8 UTF-16

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