Alan Wood’s Unicode ResourcesUnicode and Multilingual Editors and Word Processors for Mac OS 9
BBEditBBEdit is a text editor for Macintosh computers that includes extensive support for producing HTML files. It can edit text in any of the left-to-right languages and scripts for which Language Kits are installed, including double-byte scripts. However, only one font can be active at a time, and so only one non-Latin script plus unaccented Latin characters can be displayed properly simultaneously. It can use any installed Web browser for WYSIWYG preview. Files that contain multiple scripts can be opened saved with UTF-8 and UTF-16 character encoding.
HTML tags and attributes can be typed directly, or selected from a floating palette or a menu, and are shown in user-selectable colours. BBEdit includes an HTML syntax checker, and a link checker for links within your site. It is produced by Bare Bones Software, Inc. and costs US $179.00 plus shipping. A trial copy that can be used for 30 days is available. 
GoLive 5Adobe GoLive 5 is an HTML editor that can edit multilingual files in WYSIWYG mode or with the codes visible. It can edit text in any of the left-to-right languages and scripts for which Language Kits are installed, including double-byte scripts, and it can open and save files with UTF-8 character encoding (restricted to Unicode version 2.1).
Adobe GoLive 5 requires Mac OS 8.6 or 9.x. Adobe GoLive is commercial software, but a 30-day trial version is available from Adobe Product Tryouts.
MLTE DemoMLTE Demo is an experimental Unicode editor for Macintosh computers, designed as a demonstration of Apple's Multilingual Text Editor technology; it makes use of the Unicode support that has been built into Mac OS starting with version 8.5. This means that it can use the large Unicode fonts that are designed for Windows, such as Arial Unicode MS and Bitstream CyberBit. It can also use Apple's Unicode Hex Input keyboard driver (installed when any Language Kit is installed), which allows you to enter any Unicode character by holding down the Options key while typing the 4-character hexadecimal character reference, e.g. 0E05 for the Thai character kho khon.
MLTE Demo can open text and MLTE files, and save files in MLTE format. SUE, another Unicode editor for Macintosh computers, can import and export in many more formats. MLTE Demo is written by Marco Piovanelli and is available from http://www.merzwaren.com/snippets/index.html#mltedemo.
MuwseMuwse (formerly called Unisite) is an HTML editor for Macintosh computers. It can display text simultaneously in any of the languages and scripts for which Language Kits are installed. HTML tags can be typed directly, or selected from a menu or a floating palette, and there are facilities for building tables and forms by selecting items from the palette. Buttons launch Netscape and Microsoft browsers for WYSIWYG preview. Files that contain multiple scripts are automatically saved with UTF-8 character encoding. A few parts of the user interface are in Japanese instead of English, and there are many spelling mistakes.
It is produced by MAKI Enterprise Inc. and costs US $70.00. More information is available at the Muwse Multilingual Unicode Web Site Editor site. A 20-day evaluation copy is available.
Netscape Composer 6The Composer component of Netscape 6 is a multilingual HTML editor that supports Unicode and can edit files in WYSIWYG, WYSIWYG plus tags and plain HTML modes. The Mac OS 9 version can work in any language and script for which an Apple Language Kit is installed.
Composer 6 can produce files that include multiple scripts and languages, and it can save HTML files with UTF-8 character encoding. Available only as part of Netscape 6, which includes Netscape Navigator and can be downloaded free of charge from Netscape 6 Release.
Nisus Writer 6.5Nisus Writer is a multilingual, fully-featured word processor for Macintosh computers. In addition to languages that use the Latin alphabet, it can handle any language for which an Apple Language Kit is installed.
Nisus Writer can save files as HTML, but does not support Unicode and is therefore not able to save multilingual files with UTF-8 character encoding. However, the US version of the program (but not the UK version) includes a set of AppleScripts and Nisus macros from Nobumi Iyanaga that allow conversion between Nisus and UTF-8 and provide basic conversion into HTML format. It is produced by Nisus Software Inc. and costs US $79.95 plus shipping. More information, a 30-day trial version of the current release, and a free older version are available from Nisus Writer 6.5 - The Powerful Word Processor.
PepperPepper is a text editor for Macintosh computers that runs under both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X 10, and can make use of the Unicode support that has been built into Mac OS starting with version 8.5. It can therefore use Apple's Unicode Hex Input keyboard driver (installed when any Language Kit is installed), which allows you to enter any Unicode character by holding down the Options key while typing the 4-character hexadecimal character reference, e.g. 0E05 for the Thai character kho khon. Pepper has the unusual ability for a text editor to display scripts for which Language Kits are installed in appropriate fonts, but font information is not stored when files are saved.
Pepper can import and export files in UTF-8, UTF-16 (big and little endian), ANSI, MacRoman, ShiftJIS, Big5 and all of the ISO 8859 character sets. Pepper has syntax styling for HTML and several programming languages. It has a few aids to producing HTML files, but you have to type in most HTML tags, and it can save files with UTF-8 character encoding in order to produce multilingual Web pages. Pepper is shareware, and is available from http://www.hekkelman.com/pepper.html. Registration costs US $45.00.
StyleStyle is a shareware text editor that can read and write formats including Rich Text Format (RTF) and Unicode (UTF-16). For editing multiple languages and scripts, it uses Apple’s proprietary character sets, and converts to and from Unicode when documents are saved or opened. It does not support Apple’s Unicode Hex Input keyboard. It includes an AppleScript for generating HTML files with UTF-8 encoding.
More information about Style and a trial download are available from the Welcome to Style! Web site. Style is shareware, and registration costs US $12.00.
SUESUE (Simple Unicode Editor) is an experimental Unicode editor for Macintosh computers; it makes use of the Unicode support that has been built into Mac OS starting with version 8.5. This means that it can use the large Unicode fonts that are designed for Windows, such as Arial Unicode MS and Bitstream CyberBit. It can also use Apple’s Unicode Hex Input keyboard driver (installed when any Language Kit is installed), which allows you to enter any Unicode character by holding down the Options key while typing the 4-character hexadecimal character reference, e.g. 0E05 for the Thai character kho khon.
SUE can import and export files in a variety of Macintosh, ISO, Windows and DOS code pages as well as UTF-7, UTF-8 and 16-bit Unicode. It can save files as text, Unicode or Textension (the format of Apple’s Multilingual Text Editor technology). SUE has no direct support for HTML, but you can type in HTML tags and save your file with UTF-8 character encoding in order to produce multilingual Web pages. SUE is written by Tomasz Kukielka and is available from the SUE Web page.
Word 98Microsoft’s Word 98 word processor for Power PC running Mac OS 7.5 – Mac OS 9 uses the same file format as Word 97 for Windows, but cannot read multi-script documents from Word 97 for Windows. It does not make use of the support for Unicode TrueType fonts that is built in to Mac OS 9, and instead depends on Apple Language Kits to support non-Latin scripts. Multiple scripts are retained if native Word 98 documents are transferred to Word 97, Word 2000 or Word 2002, and when Unicode (UTF-16) text and HTML (UTF-8) pages are produced. Word 98 can be used as an HTML editor for producing Web pages incorporating several scripts:
The drop-down Style menu allows you to format your text. To type in other scripts or languages, select the appropriate keyboard and if necessary also choose an appropriate font.
Multi-script documents that have been produced in Word format can be converted to HTML format by creating a new Web page with UTF-8 encoding and pasting the content of the Word-format document. Word 98 has been superseded by Word 2001.
Word 2001Microsoft’s Word 2001 word processor for Mac OS 9 uses the same file format as Word 2000 for Windows, and has essentially the same Unicode and multilingual support as its predecessor, Word 98. Word 2001 has been superseded by Word:mac v. X, which requires Mac OS X 10.
WorldTextWorldText is a text editor for Mac OS 9.1 or later that uses Apple’s Multilingual Text Editor technology and makes use of the Unicode support that has been built into Mac OS starting with version 8.5. This means that it can use the large Unicode fonts that are designed for Windows, such as Arial Unicode MS. It can also use Apple’s Unicode Hex Input keyboard driver (available in the Unicode folder in the CD Extras folder on the Mac OS 9.1 CD-ROM), which allows you to enter any Unicode character by holding down the Options key while typing the 4-character hexadecimal character reference, e.g. 0E05 for the Thai character kho khon.
WorldText can open and save files in WorldText (MLTE), Unicode (UTF-16), SimpleText and Rich Text Format (RTF) formats. It can be found in the WorldText folder in the CD Extras folder on the Mac OS 9.1 CD-ROM.
Copyright © 1999–2003 Alan Wood
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