Many applications must support more than one national language, for example, French and German. This requirement is simplified through the use of such resources as string tables, menu templates, dialog templates, and accelerator tables.

A code page is a table that defines how characters are encoded. Code page management enables a user to select a code page for keyboard input, and screen and printer output before starting an application, a system command, or a utility program in the OS/2 multitasking environment.