Windows-1257
Encyclopedia
Windows-1257 is a single byte
code page
used to support the Estonian
, Latvian
and Lithuanian
languages under Microsoft Windows
. This code page is similar in layout to ISO 8859-13
, but they differ in codepoints A1, A5, B4, FF, and of course in the range 80–9F, which is typically allocated with graphical characters in most single byte Windows code pages. Windows-1257 is not compatible with the older ISO 8859-4
encoding.
As with many other code pages, the languages supported in this code page can be supported in other code pages. The Estonian language can be written with Windows-1252
. It is possible, but unusual, to write Polish
and German
using this code page. The German specific characters will be identical to those encoded in Windows-1252.
Unicode is preferred to Windows-1257 in modern applications.
code point right below and its decimal code at the bottom. Legend: yellow cells are control characters, blue cells are punctuation, purple cells are numbers, green cells are ASCII letters, light grey cells are extended punctuation, tan cells are international letters, and dark grey cells indicate undefined/unassigned code points.
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Byte
The byte is a unit of digital information in computing and telecommunications that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, a byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the basic addressable element in many computer...
code page
Code page
Code page is another term for character encoding. It consists of a table of values that describes the character set for a particular language. The term code page originated from IBM's EBCDIC-based mainframe systems, but many vendors use this term including Microsoft, SAP, and Oracle Corporation...
used to support the Estonian
Estonian language
Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...
, Latvian
Latvian language
Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language...
and Lithuanian
Lithuanian language
Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
languages under Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
. This code page is similar in layout to ISO 8859-13
ISO/IEC 8859-13
ISO/IEC 8859-13:1998, Information technology — 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets — Part 13: Latin alphabet No. 7, is part of the ISO/IEC 8859 series of ASCII-based standard character encodings, first edition published in 1998. It is informally referred to as Latin-7 or Baltic Rim...
, but they differ in codepoints A1, A5, B4, FF, and of course in the range 80–9F, which is typically allocated with graphical characters in most single byte Windows code pages. Windows-1257 is not compatible with the older ISO 8859-4
ISO/IEC 8859-4
ISO/IEC 8859-4:1998, Information technology — 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets — Part 4: Latin alphabet No. 4, is part of the ISO/IEC 8859 series of ASCII-based standard character encodings, first edition published in 1988. It is informally referred to as Latin-4 or North European. It...
encoding.
As with many other code pages, the languages supported in this code page can be supported in other code pages. The Estonian language can be written with Windows-1252
Windows-1252
Windows-1252 or CP-1252 is a character encoding of the Latin alphabet, used by default in the legacy components of Microsoft Windows in English and some other Western languages. It is one version within the group of Windows code pages...
. It is possible, but unusual, to write Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
using this code page. The German specific characters will be identical to those encoded in Windows-1252.
Unicode is preferred to Windows-1257 in modern applications.
Code page layout
Each character is shown with its UnicodeUnicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
code point right below and its decimal code at the bottom. Legend: yellow cells are control characters, blue cells are punctuation, purple cells are numbers, green cells are ASCII letters, light grey cells are extended punctuation, tan cells are international letters, and dark grey cells indicate undefined/unassigned code points.