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Does BIAB 2024 support Unicode for lyrics ?


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I don't think so.

The Band-in-a-Box "Help" file states lyric data is stored in RTF format. I interpret that to mean it understands ASCII characters and uses formatting code words.

To confuse matters more there are two ASCII character standards, the original 7 bit set with 32 printer control codes and 95 character codes and an extended 8 bit super set that includes an additional 127 codes. +++ THIS +++ website describes ASCII in detail.

+++ THIS +++ Wikipedia article states
Quote
As of Unicode version 15.1, there are 149,878 characters with code points, covering 161 modern and historical scripts, as well as multiple symbol sets.

Because Unicode has so many characters I feel confident in stating I don't believe the BiaB Lyric window supports Unicode.


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I agree with Jim. I doubt it was designed to work with Unicode characters.


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I think we need either PGM to comment, or someone who has tried using Unicode to comment.
Unicode RTF has been around since 1997, but that doesn't necessarily mean that BIAB supports it.


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Originally Posted by Gordon Scott
I think we need either PGM to comment, or someone who has tried using Unicode to comment.
Unicode RTF has been around since 1997, but that doesn't necessarily mean that BIAB supports it.
Gordon is correct. Only PGM can really answer the question, or a separate user who has achieved this.
I am presuming that there was no need to allow for 16-bit character encoding merely for storing song lyrics, however, subsequent changes in the RAD Studio development environment might have required for Unicode to be used.

Last edited by AudioTrack; 12/23/23 04:13 AM.

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Originally Posted by AudioTrack
I am presuming that there was no need to allow for 16-bit character encoding merely for storing song lyrics ...
I'm not so sure. There may well be Asian, Greek or Cryllic lyrics around, though there's also the whole Windows 'code page' malarkey as an alternative.


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Thank you all who responded to this thread.
I've browsed the BIAB2024 to find out BB supports Unicode for lyrics entry or not, and I found the info. (attached pic) tried to enter the Unicode characters but it does not work.

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Unicode_screen.jpg (32.22 KB, 40 downloads)

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Originally Posted by Gordon Scott
I'm not so sure. There may well be Asian, Greek or Cryllic lyrics around, though there's also the whole Windows 'code page' malarkey as an alternative.
That's a reasonable point, Gordon, especially for languages other than English.


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