The support of national languages by applications requires the following considerations:

• Displayed text must be translated into the appropriate language.

• Symbols or icons might not convey the same meaning in all countries. Alternative designs for different countries might be necessary.

• Translation changes the length of text strings.

• Different languages often have different text characters.

The use of national language resource files can help with the first three items, and the ability of the application to receive input and display output in any ASCII code page can help with the last item.

The use of ASCII code page 850 avoids many of the problems in this area, since it contains most of the characters required for Latin-1 languages, which include much of Western Europe and North and South America. However, older programs use code page 437 for U.S. English, and code pages 860, 863, and 865 for various languages. The code page applies to both input and output data.

Note: Code page 850 was used for translating Presentation Manager text. Use code page 850 whenever possible for all Presentation Manager applications that might require translation.