Windows – (Czech) character set support in gvim 7.3 on Windows 7

character encodinggvimlanguagespecial characterswindows 7

I have received the following text on a Skype conversation, so I assume it is encoded in UTF-8. The special characters are from the Latin 2 (e.g. Czech) character set.

Štěpánka

Now I have tried to copy these to gvim, but gvim displays black square rectangles instead of the actual characters. I have tried :set encoding=utf-8, :set fileencoding=utf-8 as well as :set fileencoding=latin-2, and :set fileencoding=latin-2. Not sure if the fact that I am using this Linux/Unix gvim program on Windows is the casuse of the problem. I have tried the :help command but could not make out what the problem was.

Here is an image how the text is displayed on gvim:

enter image description here

The same just does not happen on Notepad or MS Word.

Thank you for your help.

Best Answer

The default font gvim uses on Windows is a monospace font called Fixedsys (regular, 9pt) which only supports western writing. Choosing a Font such as Lucida Console and simultaneously setting the writing to Central European rather than Western fixes the problem. On gvim such font setting and writing setting can simultaneously be set on the Edit -> Choose Font... menu.

Thanks Rik for pointing this out. Your comment was very useful.

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