looking for a UTF-8 text editor

Question

I am looking for a (simple) text editor that can handle text in different encodings in the same document.

I need to develop some sites with mixed Japanese and English text and the editors I have now (on an English Windows system) are unable to display the Japanese text. Jedit files don't display the Japanese text I have inputted but when I look at the file in a browser it shows up correctly. Gvim shows all Japanese text in the editor as question marks and also in the browser. In Gvim inputting the kanji works (you input the pronounciation and then press space bar to get the kanji) but when you confirm the kanji you want it replaces that kanji with question marks. (1 question mark for every kanji).

Can someone recommend me a text editor to edit html and php files that is able to display utf-8 encoded text and also save as an utf-8 file ?

thank you.

After reading about emacs I installed it. see below.

Thanks everybody for the hints. if you don't have a unicode font yet you have to find one online or buy one. here are the instructions to install the font on a windows system http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314960

jEdit I changed my font in Jedit to a UTF font and now the Japanese shows up normally. inputting the Japanese is still problematic as you don't see what you are typing. (to change your font to edit files go to Utilities -> Global Options -> text area select a Unicode font and you'll be able to see the Japanese characters.

gVim I am still trying to figure out how to add a font in gvim. Once I know how to do that I ll update this.

Emacs Emacs does not show the kanji correctly, they are displayed as ??? but at least I can see what I type in Japanese and select the right word.

so at this point I have to say that in jEdit I can see Japanese text but I can't input Japanese text. Gvim I can input Japanese text but inside the text area it is displayed as ??? and the same goes for Emacs. adding a font in emacs and gvim is sadly enough not a trivial task. At the moment I use notepad with the Arial unicode MS font and saving as UTF-8 file as my Japanese editor. Not ideal but at least it works.

Answer 1

Kate. and by extension, any other KDE program that uses Kate as an embedded KPart (KWrite, Quanta+, KDevelop). It handles lots of encodings, but i like to always use UTF-8. It also has a huge collection of syntax highlightings.

Answer 2

I've never had a problem with vim as long as I use a font that actually contains the characters I want. It needs to be a monospace font. :set enc=utf8 to get to utf8 mode. Then you can use :digraph command to get a display of available characters, and see how each is displayed.

To add a font, add it in Windows (Control Panel/Fonts/Add Font). If it's a monospace font, it will then show up in vin in /Edit/Font.

Answer 3

On the Mac: SubEthaEdit has excellent support for character encodings.

Answer 4

http://www.ultraedit.com/ is a multiplatform editor that does UTF-8 and all kinds of conversions between formats

Answer 5

EditPlus seems to be an better option for UTF-8 as I have used it.

Answer 6

For very basic UTF-8 multilingual text editing, I have had good luck with BabelPad (www.babelstone.co.uk): it's free, simple and robust and displays almost everything with no fuss. When the editing needs are more severe, I resort a lot to EditPad Pro, or occasionally Notepad++. For non-Unicode editing on Windows, I'm a TextPad user--my staff and I have probably spent about 200,000 hours in TextPad, with only occasional forays into NotePad2, MadEdit, jEdit, XML Copy Editor, and EPCedit. The latter two handle UTF-8 XML files well. All of the editors mentioned above are free except TextPad and EditPad Pro. Thanks to the person who suggested Emeditor. I'll try it out. --PFSchaffner