Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Understanding ASCII and ANSI Characters.

Understanding ASCII and ANSI Characters

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 9, 2022)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016


1

Virtually everyone knows that a computer doesn't understand characters, it understands numbers. Thus, each character you see on the screen in a program such as Word is maintained internally as a number. The "mapping" of characters to numbers is known as a character set.

For the most part, Word relies on the character set used by whatever version of Windows you are using. Don't confuse the character set used by Windows with the character set used by the computer itself, as they are not the same. For instance, when you first boot your computer, you may see some start-up information on the screen. This information uses a character set maintained internally by the computer on ROM. Since Windows is not running at the time this information is displayed, the character set used by Windows cannot be in use. Once Windows is up and running, then the character set used by the computer itself is no longer used and the one maintained by Windows is relied upon.

This may sound confusing, but it is not meant to be. In the relatively short history of computers, there have been several different character sets used. The first character set used in small computers was ASCII, which is an acronym for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It started as a code of 128 characters, using seven bits to represent all the characters. (A bit is a binary digit; it can have either two values: on or off. Thus, seven bits can have 2^7 or 128 possible unique values.)

ASCII was first developed for machines that used only seven bits of each byte (such as teletypes). Early personal computers, however, used eight bits, and thus could utilize 2^8 or 256 possible values for a character code. This led to what was known as extended ASCII, where the first 128 characters matched those in ASCII, but the second 128 were left up to the computer manufacturer. In early IBM PC models, the extended ASCII character set included some foreign-language symbols and many line-drawing characters, used for rudimentary graphics.

Microsoft calls the character set utilized by your computer (as pointed out earlier in this tip) the OEM character set. (OEM means "original equipment manufacturer.") Windows versions through Windows 95 utilize what is called an ANSI character set. This is a single-byte character set that can represent up to 256 characters. The original ASCII character set occupies the first 128 characters of the ANSI set used in Windows. All later versions of Windows, on the other hand, utilize the Unicode character set, which is described in other issues of WordTips.

Remember that this discussion of what the various versions of Windows use refers to what they use internally. Externally, for a typical Word user, there isn't much effect.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (11330) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Understanding ASCII and ANSI Characters.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Making Common Functions Available to Others

When you use macros to create functions, you might want to share those functions with others, particularly if they ...

Discover More

Reducing File Size

As you work with a workbook (particularly one that contains macros) you may notice that the workbook size can become ...

Discover More

Pay Attention to Case when Searching for ASCII Codes

Word allows you to search for specific ASCII codes in a document. If you use codes to search for alphabetic characters, ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 365 applications with VBA programming. Written in clear terms and understandable language, the book includes systematic tutorials and contains both intermediate and advanced content for experienced VB developers. Designed to be comprehensive, the book addresses not just one Office application, but the entire Office suite. Check out Mastering VBA for Microsoft Office 365 today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Canceling a Command

Tired of waiting for a command to finish running? You can use the same shortcut to cancel a command that you use to ...

Discover More

Arranging Document Windows

When you have multiple documents open at the same time, you need a way to control how those document windows appear on ...

Discover More

Finding Default Shortcut Keys

There are scores of shortcut keys defined in Word. If you want to discover what all those shortcut keys are, here are a ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 5 - 4?

2022-08-09 07:25:15

Jamies

I believe the article would have been vastly improved by at least a mention of the recent change MS made to the default character set used within Notepad, making many ASCII and ANSI based text readers and data transfer apps/utilities, options give poor transfer translation of data, including some windows conversion of punctuation characters into 3 character sets, some of which cause readers to do newline, or newpage spacing instead of showing the 'appropriate' punctuation !
Maybe mention replacements for notepad, and the (probable) need to specify an alternative codepage to the now current default one


This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Videos
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.