GabEncodingTools

Introduction

GabSoftware proudly introduce its new software suite, GabEncodingTools, which is dedicated to process and convert files of different character encodings. The suite is composed of the two following components :

• GabEncodingConverter : The graphical version of GabEncodingTools, convenient and easy to use
• GabEncodingConverterConsole : The console version of GabEncodingTools, adapted to experts and/or batch scripting

Screenshots of each component :

You can see the main window of GabEncodingConverter

Help message displayed by GabEncodingConverterConsole

Features :

• Conversion of files of different character encodings
• Automatic detection of the character encoding of the opened file
• Wide choice of character encodings (140 available)
• Unique structure of source and destination panes
• Specify the encoding of the source file and the destination file
• Search and replace functions
• Portable, no installation needed
• Free of charge (*) for personal use !

System requirements :

GabEncodingTools was conceived to minimize system resources usage. It should run on a wide variety of workstations. However the following conditions are required to run it :

• Less than 1 MB of free space on your hard drive
• 16 to 64 MB of free RAM
• .NET Framework 2.0 (see the Runtimes section)
• 1024×768 display
• Windows Operating System (2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008 or Seven)

Download

Feel free to download the binaries and the source code of the GabEncodingTools suite.

GabEncodingTools and character encoding short FAQ :

Q : What is a character encoding ?

A : Each character needs a way to be stored. A character is composed of its graphical representation and its code. Computers only understand 0 and 1, so every character have to be coded using zeros and ones. At the beginning of computing, a standard and basic character encoding has been created : US ASCII. There were 127 characters in this ASCII character table, covering almost all the needs for English speaking people, with also various punctuation and control characters. This was quite perfect for the English people. However, there are numerous languages, and the ASCII character encoding wasn’t enough to represent the characters of those other languages, especially when you look at the Chinese language with its 50.000 different sinograms. So various character encodings have been created, allowing other languages to store and display their own characters.

Q : Why should you care about character encodings ?

A : Because a document produced in your computer with a certain character encoding could be displayed wrongly in another computer which could have a different default character encoding. This is especially true if you try to display a Chinese document encoded in GB2312 on a computer with a default encoding of Windows 1252 : you will see a bunch of unreadable characters.

Q : So it has to be quite complicated to exchange documents all over the world, no ?

A : Yes, indeed !

Q : How to solve this encoding hell ?

A : By always saving your documents in UTF-8 or another Unicode encoding. These encodings are the best warrants that your document will be displayed identically on two computers of different default character encoding. For other documents not in UTF-8 or Unicode, GabEncodingTools is here to help.

Q : Is there a native 64 bits (x64) version of GabEncodingTools ?

A : No, there is only a 32 bits (x86) version of GabEncodingTools, because the Interop that is done for the automatic recognition of character encodings is not yet compatible with 64 bits systems, and so we didn’t compile the application  in native 64 bits managed code. However you can run the 32 bits version on 64 bits systems without any problem.

Q : Is character encoding “x” available in your software ?

A : It is probably available, just download the software to see if the desired encoding is proposed. There is good chances.

Notes :

(*) : This product is free for personal use. For corporate use, please contact us