Mercurial > emacs

--- a/man/mule.texi	Sat May 05 22:39:29 2001 +0000
+++ b/man/mule.texi	Sun May 06 11:27:54 2001 +0000
@@ -44,6 +44,42 @@
   Emacs also supports various encodings of these characters used by
 other internationalized software, such as word processors and mailers.

+  Emacs allows editing text with international characters by supporting
+all the related activities:
+
+@itemize @bullet
+@item
+You can visit files with non-ASCII characters, save non-ASCII text, and
+pass non-ASCII text between Emacs and programs it invokes (such as
+compilers, spell-checkers, and mailers).  Setting your language
+environment (@pxref{Language Environments}) takes care of setting up the
+coding systems and other options for a specific language or culture.
+Alternatively, you can specify how Emacs should encode or decode text
+for each command; see @ref{Specify Coding}.
+
+@item
+You can display non-ASCII characters encoded by the various scripts.
+This works by using appropriate fonts on X and similar graphics
+displays (@pxref{Defining Fontsets}), and by sending special codes to
+text-only displays (@pxref{Specify Coding}).  If some characters are
+displayed incorrectly, refer to @ref{Undisplayable Characters}, which
+describes possible problems and explains how to solve them.
+
+@item
+You can insert non-ASCII characters or search for them.  To do that,
+you can specify an input method (@pxref{Select Input Method}) suitable
+for your language, or use the default input method set up when you set
+your language environment.  (Emacs input methods are part of the Leim
+package, which must be installed for you to be able to use them.)  If
+your keyboard can produce non-ASCII characters, you can select an
+appropriate keyboard coding system (@pxref{Specify Coding}), and Emacs
+will accept those characters.  Latin-1 characters can also be input by
+using the @kbd{C-x 8} prefix, see @ref{Single-Byte Character Support,
+C-x 8}.
+@end itemize
+
+  The rest of this chapter describes these issues in detail.
+
 @menu
 * International Intro::     Basic concepts of multibyte characters.
 * Enabling Multibyte::      Controlling whether to use multibyte characters.
@@ -121,6 +157,7 @@
 @node Enabling Multibyte
 @section Enabling Multibyte Characters

+@cindex turn multibyte support on or off
   You can enable or disable multibyte character support, either for
 Emacs as a whole, or for a single buffer.  When multibyte characters are
 disabled in a buffer, then each byte in that buffer represents a
@@ -134,6 +171,9 @@
 characters in these character sets, and Emacs can translate
 automatically to and from the ISO codes.

+  By default, Emacs starts in multibyte mode, because that allows you to
+use all the supported languages and scripts without limitations.
+
   To edit a particular file in unibyte representation, visit it using
 @code{find-file-literally}.  @xref{Visiting}.  To convert a buffer in
 multibyte representation into a single-byte representation of the same
@@ -152,8 +192,16 @@
 the @samp{--unibyte} option (@pxref{Initial Options}), or set the
 environment variable @env{EMACS_UNIBYTE}.  You can also customize
 @code{enable-multibyte-characters} or, equivalently, directly set the
-variable @code{default-enable-multibyte-characters} in your init file to
-have basically the same effect as @samp{--unibyte}.
+variable @code{default-enable-multibyte-characters} to @code{nil} in
+your init file to have basically the same effect as @samp{--unibyte}.
+
+@findex toggle-enable-multibyte-characters
+  To convert a unibyte session to a multibyte session, set
+@code{default-enable-multibyte-characters} to @code{t}.  Buffers which
+were created in the unibyte session before you turn on multibyte support
+will stay unibyte.  You can turn on multibyte support in a specific
+buffer by invoking the command @code{toggle-enable-multibyte-characters}
+in that buffer.

 @cindex Lisp files, and multibyte operation
 @cindex multibyte operation, and Lisp files
@@ -527,10 +575,15 @@
 coding systems @code{no-conversion}, @code{raw-text} and
 @code{emacs-mule} which do not convert printing characters at all.

+@cindex international files from DOS/Windows systems
   A special class of coding systems, collectively known as
 @dfn{codepages}, is designed to support text encoded by MS-Windows and
 MS-DOS software.  To use any of these systems, you need to create it
-with @kbd{M-x codepage-setup}.  @xref{MS-DOS and MULE}.
+with @kbd{M-x codepage-setup}.  @xref{MS-DOS and MULE}.  After
+creating the coding system for the codepage, you can use it as any
+other coding system.  For example, to visit a file encoded in codepage
+850, type @kbd{C-x @key{RET} c cp850 @key{RET} C-x C-f @var{filename}
+@key{RET}}.

   In addition to converting various representations of non-ASCII
 characters, a coding system can perform end-of-line conversion.  Emacs
@@ -630,8 +683,11 @@
 @node Recognize Coding
 @section Recognizing Coding Systems

-  Most of the time, Emacs can recognize which coding system to use for
-any given file---once you have specified your preferences.
+  Emacs tries to recognize which coding system to use for a given text
+as an integral part of reading that text.  (This applies to files
+being read, output from subprocesses, text from X selections, etc.)
+Emacs can select the right coding system automatically most of the
+time---once you have specified your preferences.

   Some coding systems can be recognized or distinguished by which byte
 sequences appear in the data.  However, there are coding systems that
@@ -737,6 +793,11 @@
 by a @samp{-*-coding:-*-} tag in a member of the archive and thinking it
 applies to the archive file as a whole.

+  If Emacs recognizes the encoding of a file incorrectly, you can
+reread the file using the correct coding system by typing @kbd{C-x
+@key{RET} c @var{coding-system} @key{RET} M-x revert-buffer
+@key{RET}}.
+
 @vindex buffer-file-coding-system
   Once Emacs has chosen a coding system for a buffer, it stores that
 coding system in @code{buffer-file-coding-system} and uses that coding