I'm not really sure, but in OpenOffice.org, different character sets can be selected by Menu
File -
Save As, File type
Text Encoded selected (or, if wishing to change the encoding of an already existing file: Menu
File -
Open, File type
Text Encoded selected.)
The default character set for Linux is iso_8859_1. However, other character sets are likely in place on your machine as well. If you're using x-windows, rather than the command line, then the command "xlsfonts" will list all the fonts (there are a lot of them) and tell you which character set is in play with any particular font on your machine. So, to find out which character scheme is in place with a particular font you're using -- for example, if you're using OpenOffice.org and have chosen Liberation Serif, then enter the following command in a terminal (like xterm) to get the information about your current character encoding scheme being used:
Code:
mark@debian:~$ xlsfonts *liberation*
-ascender-liberation.mono-bold-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
-ascender-liberation.mono-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
-ascender-liberation.mono-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
-ascender-liberation.mono-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
-ascender-liberation.sans-bold-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
-ascender-liberation.sans-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
-ascender-liberation.sans-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
-ascender-liberation.sans-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
-ascender-liberation.serif-bold-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
-ascender-liberation.serif-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
-ascender-liberation.serif-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
-ascender-liberation.serif-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
mark@debian:~$
In this case, it is using the default. If you're using an outside font, such as Verdana (which is a biggie), there may be different character sets (why, exactly, I don't know):
Code:
mark@debian:~$ xlsfonts *verdana*
-microsoft-verdana-bold-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-microsoft-cp1251
-microsoft-verdana-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso10646-1
-microsoft-verdana-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
-microsoft-verdana-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-10
-microsoft-verdana-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-13
-microsoft-verdana-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-14
-microsoft-verdana-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-15
-microsoft-verdana-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-2
-microsoft-verdana-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-3
-microsoft-verdana-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-4
-microsoft-verdana-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-5
-microsoft-verdana-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-7
-microsoft-verdana-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-9
-microsoft-verdana-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-koi8-r
-microsoft-verdana-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-koi8-u
-microsoft-verdana-medium-i-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-microsoft-cp1251
-microsoft-verdana-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso10646-1
-microsoft-verdana-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
-microsoft-verdana-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-10
-microsoft-verdana-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-13
-microsoft-verdana-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-14
-microsoft-verdana-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-15
-microsoft-verdana-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-2
-microsoft-verdana-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-3
-microsoft-verdana-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-4
-microsoft-verdana-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-5
-microsoft-verdana-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-7
-microsoft-verdana-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-9
-microsoft-verdana-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-koi8-r
-microsoft-verdana-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-koi8-u
-microsoft-verdana-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-microsoft-cp1251
To display the characters in an x-font, use the xfd tool (aka x font display). For instance, if you've been using Liberation Serif, regular normal text, then after having determined the exact font name via xlsfonts (see above), you can get a display of its characters via the xfd command:
Code:
xfd -fn '-ascender-liberation.serif-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1'
This will cause a box to pop up that will display the characters in the font for you.
To select a font name from all the fonts on your system, the command "xfontsel" can be used. After using this to determine which font you desire (and its accompanying character set) I think you could then use the aforementioned OpenOffice.org procedure for applying the different character set(s) to your document (useful if the desired character set or font is not listed in OOo's default font choices).
