Windows-1255 is a

code page In computing, a code page is a character encoding and as such it is a specific association of a set of printable characters and control characters with unique numbers. Typically each number represents the binary value in a single byte. (In some co ...

used under

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

to write

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

. It is an almost compatible superset of

ISO-8859-8 ISO/IEC 8859-8, ''Information technology — 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets — Part 8: Latin/Hebrew alphabet'', is part of the ISO/IEC 8859 series of ASCII-based standard character encodings. ISO/IEC 8859-8:1999 from 1999 represe ...

most of the symbols are in the same positions (except for A4, which is 'sheqel sign' in Windows-1255 but 'generic currency sign' in ISO 8859-8 and except for DF, which is undefined in Windows-1255 but 'double low line' in ISO 8859-8), but Windows-1255 adds vowel-points and other signs in lower positions. IBM uses code page 1255 (

CCSID A CCSID (coded character set identifier) is a 16-bit number that represents a particular encoding of a specific code page. For example, Unicode is a code page that has several encoding (so called "transformation") forms, like UTF-8, UTF-16 and UTF ...

1255,

euro sign The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists ...

extended CCSID 5351, and the further extended CCSID 9447) for Windows-1255. Modern applications prefer

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

to Windows-1255, especially on the Internet; meaning

UTF-8 UTF-8 is a variable-width encoding, variable-length character encoding used for electronic communication. Defined by the Unicode Standard, the name is derived from ''Unicode'' (or ''Universal Coded Character Set'') ''Transformation Format 8-bit'' ...

, the dominant encoding for web pages (or UTF-16, while not on the Internet for security reasons). Windows-1255 is used by less that 0.1% of websites.

Character set

The following table shows Windows-1255. Each character is shown with its

equivalent.

Usage

Windows-1255 Hebrew is always in logical order (as opposed to visual). Microsoft Hebrew products (Windows, Office and Internet Explorer) brought logically-ordered Hebrew to common use, with the result that Windows-1255 is the Hebrew encoding that can be found most on the Web, having ousted the visually ordered

, and preferred to the logically ordered

ISO-8859-8-I ISO-8859-8- is the IANA charset name for the character encoding ISO/IEC 8859-8 used together with the control codes from ISO/IEC 6429 for the C0 (00–1F hex) and C1 (80–9F) parts. The characters are in logical order. Escape sequences (from ISO ...

because it provides for vowel-points.

Relation to Unicode

The

Hebrew block (U+0590–U+05FF) follows Windows-1255 by encoding both letters and vowel-points in the same relative positions as Windows-1255. Unicode goes further in encoding

cantillation Cantillation is the ritual chanting of prayers and responses. It often specifically refers to Jewish Hebrew cantillation. Cantillation sometimes refers to diacritics used in texts that are to be chanted in liturgy. Cantillation includes: * Chant ...

marks in lower positions. Unicode Hebrew is always in logical order. For modern applications

UTF-16 UTF-16 (16-bit computing, 16-bit Unicode Transformation Format) is a character encoding capable of encoding all 1,112,064 valid code points of Unicode (in fact this number of code points is dictated by the design of UTF-16). The encoding is variab ...

is a preferred encoding.

References

External links

IANA Charset Name Registration of windows-1255
{{Character encoding Windows code pages

Character set

Usage

Relation to Unicode

See also

References

External links