July 15th, 2004

Don't forget to #define UNICODE if you want Unicode

I answered this comment directly, but it deserves reiteration with wider visibility. If you don’t #define UNICODE, you get ANSI by default. If you want to see characters beyond the boring 7-bit ASCII, make sure you are using a font that can display those characters. I am assuming a level of competence where issues like this go without saying, so that I can dig into the more advanced topics without having to explain all the basics, but I have to accept that people of all levels of programming experience read my stuff.

But the second part raises an advanced question: How do you find a font that can display the characters you want? What if the characters can come from a source outside your control? We’ll look at this tomorrow.

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Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

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