Windows-1252

Windows-1252 or CP-1252 (code page 1252) is a single-byte character encoding of the Latin alphabet, used by default in the legacy components of Microsoft Windows for English and many European languages including Spanish, French, and German.

Windows-1252

MIME / IANA	windows-1252[1]
Language(s)	Basically all supported by ISO/IEC 8859-1 e.g. English, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish. Plus also German, Finnish, Icelandic and French. And Dutch except the IJ character. And Slovenian except the č character.
Created by	Microsoft
Standard	WHATWG Encoding Standard
Classification	extended ASCII, Windows-125x
Extends	ISO 8859-1 (excluding C1 controls)
Transforms / Encodes	ISO 8859-15

It is the most-used single-byte character encoding in the world. As of January 2021, 0.3% of all web sites declared use of Windows-1252,[2][3] but at the same time 1.6%[2] used ISO 8859-1 (while only 0.9% of top-1000 websites[4]), which by HTML5 standards should be considered the same encoding,[5] so that 1.9% of web sites effectively use Windows-1252. Pages declared as US-ASCII would also count as this character set. An unknown (but probably large) subset of other pages only use the ASCII portion of UTF-8, or only the codes matching Windows-1252 from their declared character set, and could also be counted.

Depending on the country, use can be much higher than the global average, e.g. for Germany (including ISO-8859-1) at 7.2%.[6][7]

Details

This character encoding is a superset of ISO 8859-1 in terms of printable characters, but differs from the IANA's ISO-8859-1 by using displayable characters rather than control characters in the 80 to 9F (hex) range. Notable additional characters include curly quotation marks and all the printable characters that are in ISO 8859-15 (at different places than ISO 8859-15). It is known to Windows by the code page number 1252, and by the IANA-approved name "windows-1252".

It is very common to mislabel Windows-1252 text with the charset label ISO-8859-1. A common result was that all the quotes and apostrophes (produced by "smart quotes" in word-processing software) were replaced with question marks or boxes on non-Windows operating systems, making text difficult to read. Most modern web browsers and e-mail clients treat the media type charset ISO-8859-1 as Windows-1252 to accommodate such mislabeling. This is now standard behavior in the HTML5 specification, which requires that documents advertised as ISO-8859-1 actually be parsed with the Windows-1252 encoding.[5]

Historically, the phrase "ANSI Code Page" was used in Windows to refer to non-DOS encodings; the intention was that most of these would be ANSI standards such as ISO-8859-1. Even though Windows-1252 was the first and by far most popular code page named so in Microsoft Windows parlance, the code page has never been an ANSI standard. Microsoft explains, "The term ANSI as used to signify Windows code pages is a historical reference, but is nowadays a misnomer that continues to persist in the Windows community."[8]

In LaTeX packages, CP-1252 is referred to as "ansinew".

IBM uses code page 1252 (CCSID 1252 and euro sign extended CCSID 5348) for Windows-1252.[9][10][11]

Character set

The following table shows Windows-1252. Each character is shown with its Unicode equivalent based on the Unicode.org mapping of Windows-1252 with "best fit". The decimal numbers (styled 0123) are the Alt code that can be used to type these on Windows systems. Differences from ISO-8859-1 are shown with darker shading on top of their legend colours.

Windows-1252 (CP1252)[12][13][14][15][16]

	_0	_1	_2	_3	_4	_5	_6	_7	_8	_9	_A	_B	_C	_D	_E	_F
0_ 0	NUL 0000 0	SOH 0001 01	STX 0002 02	ETX 0003 03	EOT 0004 04	ENQ 0005 05	ACK 0006 06	BEL 0007 07	BS 0008 08	HT 0009 09	LF 000A 010	VT 000B 011	FF 000C 012	CR 000D 013	SO 000E 014	SI 000F 015
1_ 16	DLE 0010 016	DC1 0011 017	DC2 0012 018	DC3 0013 019	DC4 0014 020	NAK 0015 021	SYN 0016 022	ETB 0017 023	CAN 0018 024	EM 0019 025	SUB 001A 026	ESC 001B 027	FS 001C 028	GS 001D 029	RS 001E 030	US 001F 031
2_ 32	SP 0020 32	! 0021 33	" 0022 34	# 0023 35	$ 0024 36	% 0025 37	& 0026 38	' 0027 39	( 0028 40	) 0029 41	* 002A 42	+ 002B 43	, 002C 44	- 002D 45	. 002E 46	/ 002F 47
3_ 48	0 0030 48	1 0031 49	2 0032 50	3 0033 51	4 0034 52	5 0035 53	6 0036 54	7 0037 55	8 0038 56	9 0039 57	: 003A 58	; 003B 59	< 003C 60	= 003D 61	> 003E 62	? 003F 63
4_ 64	@ 0040 64	A 0041 65	B 0042 66	C 0043 67	D 0044 68	E 0045 69	F 0046 70	G 0047 71	H 0048 72	I 0049 73	J 004A 74	K 004B 75	L 004C 76	M 004D 77	N 004E 78	O 004F 79
5_ 80	P 0050 80	Q 0051 81	R 0052 82	S 0053 83	T 0054 84	U 0055 85	V 0056 86	W 0057 87	X 0058 88	Y 0059 89	Z 005A 90	[ 005B 91	\ 005C 92	] 005D 93	^ 005E 94	_ 005F 95
6_ 96	` 0060 96	a 0061 97	b 0062 98	c 0063 99	d 0064 100	e 0065 101	f 0066 102	g 0067 103	h 0068 104	i 0069 105	j 006A 106	k 006B 107	l 006C 108	m 006D 109	n 006E 110	o 006F 111
7_ 112	p 0070 112	q 0071 113	r 0072 114	s 0073 115	t 0074 116	u 0075 117	v 0076 118	w 0077 119	x 0078 120	y 0079 121	z 007A 122	{ 007B 123	| 007C 124	} 007D 125	~ 007E 126	DEL 007F 0127
8_ 128	€ 20AC 0128		‚ 201A 0130	ƒ 0192 0131	„ 201E 0132	… 2026 0133	† 2020 0134	‡ 2021 0135	ˆ 02C6 0136	‰ 2030 0137	Š 0160 0138	‹ 2039 0139	Œ 0152 0140		Ž 017D 0142
9_ 144		‘ 2018 0145	’ 2019 0146	“ 201C 0147	” 201D 0148	• 2022 0149	– 2013 0150	— 2014 0151	˜  02DC 0152	™ 2122 0153	š 0161 0154	› 203A 0155	œ 0153 0156		ž 017E 0158	Ÿ 0178 0159
A_ 160	NBSP 00A0 0160	¡ 00A1 0161	¢ 00A2 0162	£ 00A3 0163	¤ 00A4 0164	¥ 00A5 0165	¦ 00A6 0166	§ 00A7 0167	¨ 00A8 0168	© 00A9 0169	ª 00AA 0170	« 00AB 0171	¬ 00AC 0172	SHY 00AD 0173	® 00AE 0174	¯ 00AF 0175
B_ 176	° 00B0 0176	± 00B1 0177	² 00B2 0178	³ 00B3 0179	´ 00B4 0180	µ 00B5 0181	¶ 00B6 0182	· 00B7 0183	¸ 00B8 0184	¹ 00B9 0185	º 00BA 0186	» 00BB 0187	¼ 00BC 0188	½ 00BD 0189	¾ 00BE 0190	¿ 00BF 0191
C_ 192	À 00C0 0192	Á 00C1 0193	Â 00C2 0194	Ã 00C3 0195	Ä 00C4 0196	Å 00C5 0197	Æ 00C6 0198	Ç 00C7 0199	È 00C8 0200	É 00C9 0201	Ê 00CA 0202	Ë 00CB 0203	Ì 00CC 0204	Í 00CD 0205	Î 00CE 0206	Ï 00CF 0207
D_ 208	Ð 00D0 0208	Ñ 00D1 0209	Ò 00D2 0210	Ó 00D3 0211	Ô 00D4 0212	Õ 00D5 0213	Ö 00D6 0214	× 00D7 0215	Ø 00D8 0216	Ù 00D9 0217	Ú 00DA 0218	Û 00DB 0219	Ü 00DC 0220	Ý 00DD 0221	Þ 00DE 0222	ß 00DF 0223
E_ 224	à 00E0 0224	á 00E1 0225	â 00E2 0226	ã 00E3 0227	ä 00E4 0228	å 00E5 0229	æ 00E6 0230	ç 00E7 0231	è 00E8 0232	é 00E9 0233	ê 00EA 0234	ë 00EB 0235	ì 00EC 0236	í 00ED 0237	î 00EE 0238	ï 00EF 0239
F_ 240	ð 00F0 0240	ñ 00F1 0241	ò 00F2 0242	ó 00F3 0243	ô 00F4 0244	õ 00F5 0245	ö 00F6 0246	÷ 00F7 0247	ø 00F8 0248	ù 00F9 0249	ú 00FA 0250	û 00FB 0251	ü 00FC 0252	ý 00FD 0253	þ 00FE 0254	ÿ 00FF 0255

  Letter   Number   Punctuation   Symbol   Other   Undefined

According to the information on Microsoft's and the Unicode Consortium's websites, positions 81, 8D, 8F, 90, and 9D are unused; however, the Windows API MultiByteToWideChar maps these to the corresponding C1 control codes. The "best fit" mapping documents this behavior, too.[12]

History

• The first version of the codepage 1252 used in Microsoft Windows 1.0 did not have positions D7 and F7 defined. All the characters in the ranges 80–9F were undefined too.
• The second version, used in Microsoft Windows 2.0, positions D7, F7, 91, and 92 had been defined.
• The third version, used since Microsoft Windows 3.1, had all the present-day positions defined, except euro sign and Z with caron character pair.
• The final version listed above debuted in Microsoft Windows 98 and was ported to older versions of Windows with the euro symbol update.

OS/2 extensions

The OS/2 operating system supports an encoding by the name of Code page 1004 (CCSID 1004) or "Windows Extended".[17][18] This mostly matches code page 1252, with the exception of certain C0 control characters being replaced by diacritic characters. Differences from ISO-8859-1 are shown with darker shading on top of their legend colours.

Code page 1004 (differing rows only)[19][20][21][22]

	_0	_1	_2	_3	_4	_5	_6	_7	_8	_9	_A	_B	_C	_D	_E	_F
0_ 0	NUL 0000	SOH 0001	STX 0002	ETX 0003	ˉ 02C9	˘ 02D8	˙ 02D9	BEL 0007	˚ 02DA	HT 0009	˝ 02DD	˛ 02DB	ˇ 02C7	CR 000D	SO 000E	SI 000F

MSDOS extensions [rare]

There is a rarely used, but useful, graphics extended code page 1252 where codes 0x00 to 0x1f allow for box drawing as used in applications such as MSDOS Edit and Codeview. One of the applications to use this code page was an Intel Corporation Install/Recovery disk image utility from mid/late 1995. These programs were written for its P6 User Test Program machines (US example[23]). It was used exclusively in its then EMEA region (Europe, Middle East & Africa). In time the programs were changed to use code page 850.

Graphics Extended Code Page 1252

	_0	_1	_2	_3	_4	_5	_6	_7	_8	_9	_A	_B	_C	_D	_E	_F
0_ 0	○ 25CB	■ 25A0	↑ 2191	↓ 2193	→ 2192	← 2190	║ 2551	═ 2550	╔ 2554	╗ 2557	╚ 255A	╝ 255D	░ 2591	▒ 2592	► 25BA	◄ 25C4
1_ 16	│ 2502	─ 2500	┌ 250C	┐ 2510	└ 2514	┘ 2518	├ 251C	┤ 2524	┴ 2534	┬ 252C	♦ 2666	┼ 253C	█ 2588	▄ 2584	▀ 2580	▬ 25AC

See also

• Western Latin character sets (computing)
• Windows-1250

References

1. Character Sets, Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), 2018-12-12
2. "Historical trends in the usage of character encodings, January 2021". Retrieved 2021-01-25.
3. "Frequently Asked Questions".
4. "Usage Survey of Character Encodings broken down by Ranking". w3techs.com. Retrieved 2021-01-24.
5. "Encoding". WHATWG. 27 January 2015. sec. 5.2 Names and labels. Archived from the original on 4 February 2015. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
6. "Distribution of Character Encodings among websites that use .de". w3techs.com. Retrieved 2021-01-24.
7. "Distribution of Character Encodings among websites that use German". w3techs.com. Retrieved 2021-01-24.
8. Wissink, Cathy (5 April 2002). "Unicode and Windows XP" (PDF). Microsoft. p. 1. Archived (PDF) from the original on 4 February 2015. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
9. "Code page 1252 information document". Archived from the original on 2016-03-03.
10. "CCSID 1252 information document". Archived from the original on 2016-03-26.
11. "CCSID 5348 information document". Archived from the original on 2014-11-29.
12. "Unicode mappings of Windows-1252 with 'Best Fit'". Unicode. Archived from the original on 4 February 2015. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
13. Code Page CPGID 01252 (pdf) (PDF), IBM
14. Code Page CPGID 01252 (txt), IBM
15. International Components for Unicode (ICU), ibm-1252_P100-2000.ucm, 2002-12-03
16. International Components for Unicode (ICU), ibm-5348_P100-1997.ucm, 2002-12-03
17. "Code page 1004 information document". Archived from the original on 2015-06-25.
18. "CCSID 1004 information document". Archived from the original on 2016-03-26.
19. "Code Page 01004" (PDF). IBM. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-07-08. (version based on Windows 3.1 version of Windows-1252)
20. Code Page CPGID 01004 (pdf) (PDF), IBM
21. Code Page CPGID 01004 (txt), IBM
22. Borgendale, Ken (2001). "Codepage 1004 - Windows Extended". OS/2 codepages by number. Archived from the original on 2018-05-13. Retrieved 2018-05-13. (version based on current version of Windows-1252)
23. "Performance of NASA Equation Solvers on Computational Mechanics Applications" (PDF). NASA.

External links

• Microsoft's code charts for Windows-1252 ("Code Page 1252 Windows Latin 1 (ANSI)")
• Unicode mapping table and code page definition with best fit mappings for Windows-1252