# Vim documentation: multibyte

main help file

    *multibyte.txt* For Vim version 6.0aq.  Last change: 2001 Jul 12

    		  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 |multilang.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|

    ==============================================================================

    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 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 medhods 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 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 characters 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 less 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)
    1   iso-8859-n	ISO_8859 variant (n = 2 to 15)
    1   koi8-r	Russian
    1   koi8-u	Ukrainian
    1   8bit-{name} any 8-bit encoding (Vim specific name)
    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
        cp{number}	MS-Windows: any installed codepage which is single-byte or
    		double-byte

    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

    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 "chinese", on MS-Windows cp936
    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)

    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 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 you can only type 8bit characters; 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/hmconv1.0pl3

        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/freeware/lv4493.tar.gz

    ==============================================================================

    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://www.clark.net/pub/dickey/xterm/xterm.tar.gz

    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...

    First of all, Vim only accepts fixed-width fonts.  You cannot use
    proportionally spaced fonts.  This excludes many of the available (and nicer
    looking) fonts.

    Note that Display and Input are independent.  It is possible to see your
    language even though you have no input method for it.

    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 14 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 DEFAULT 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 kind 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://xcin.linux.org.tw/

    - 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:
    	ftp://ftp.nec.co.jp/pub/Canna/

    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 can be found at:
    	ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.ORG/pub/FreeBSD/ports/distfiles/Wnn4.2.tar.gz

    - 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 support three style, |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* *E289*

    				*E285* *E291* *E292* *E290* *ez4*

    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 CONTROLED 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 controled 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 have to use 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 momorized automatically.

    This works on not only insert-normal mode, but also search-command input and
    replace mode.

    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 guibg=Green guifg=NONE
    	    highlight CursorIM guibg=Purple guifg=NONE
    	endif

        Cursor color with off IME is green.  And purple cursor indicates that
        status is on.

    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 are no need usually.) But there is one that
        called Microsoft Global IME.  Global IME is a part of Internet Exproler
        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.  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://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/features/ime.asp

        - Active Input Method Manager (Global IME)
    	http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/misc/AIMM/aimm.asp

        Support Global IME is a experimental feature.

    NOTE: For IME to work you must make sure in the "Language settings for the
    system" the default locale is set to your language.  The exact location of
    this depends on the version of Windows you use.

    ==============================================================================

    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'.

    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*
    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.
    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.

    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>

    ==============================================================================

    10. Using UTF-8				*mbyte-utf8* *UTF-8* *utf-8* *utf8*

    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 two most popular ones are UCS-2,
    which uses 16-bit words and UTF-8, which uses one or more bytes for each
    character.  Vim can support all of these encodings, but always uses UTF-8
    internally.

    Vim has comprehensive UTF-8 support.  It appears to work in:
    - xterm with utf-8 support enabled
    - Athena, Motif and GTK GUI
    - MS-Windows GUI

    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.

    Up to two combining characters can be used.  The combining character is drawn
    on top of the preceding character.  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 16 bit characters, and only 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.

    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*

    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 needs
    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 alse 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 endoding.  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>
    	Nam SungHyun <namsh@lge.com>
    	K.Nagano <nagano@atese.advantest.co.jp>
    	Taro Muraoka <koron@tka.att.ne.jp>
    	Yasuhiro Matsumoto <mattn@mail.goo.ne.jp>

    top - main help file