[SOLVED] Not all ascii characters are showing in text editors.

Hi.

Today, I noticed that not all ascii characters are showing in text editors (I tried geany, pluma, LO writer, etc.).

The automatic encoding part of Pluma is not on by default.

Those missing symbols aren't ASCII, they're Unicode.

Try setting your editor to view UTF-8, if possible. Although, in saying that, if an editor doesn't display the tulip emoji then I'm surprised it's showing the trash emoji.

If that doesn't work, change the font being used by the editor. Perhaps the font you're using (system font?) has incomplete coverage of Unicode symbols.

Hi hydrurga.

I tried a new font in LO Writer and Pluma. Also opened with Pluma and selected the UTF-8 option.
There's an 'add/remove character encoding option' in Pluma, I noticed this (image). Only Western is shown. I see no UTF-8 in the left column.

This might be of help:

locale

LANG=en_IE.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=en_IE:en
LC_CTYPE="en_IE.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_IE.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_IE.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_IE.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_IE.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_IE.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_IE.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_IE.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_IE.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_IE.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_IE.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_IE.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

I ran this and changed nothing as it looks ok already.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

There's nothing wrong with your locale or your software. You just don't have a font with every unicode symbol, something which doesn't actually exist. Whatever font you're using, the designer evidently thought that Trash was worth having and Tulip wasn't. I don't have either in any of my fonts.

If you want to go font hunting, try
http://www.unifont.org/index.html
http://www.wazu.jp/
You're looking for the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs on Plane 1.
http://www.unicode.org/charts/

You can view your font in charmap and see which symbols it contains.

Actually, that application shows all the characters available. When you select a font, it merely gives that font preference when picking a character. For a display confined to the characters in one font only, use the character inserter in Writer.

AwesomeMachine was probably referring to GNOME Character Map, a GUI program that contains a drop-down list of fonts so one can see what characters are included in each font.

Originally Posted by DavidMcCann There's nothing wrong with your locale or your software. You just don't have a font with every unicode symbol, something which doesn't actually exist. Whatever font you're using, the designer evidently thought that Trash was worth having and Tulip wasn't. I don't have either in any of my fonts. If you want to go font hunting, try http://www.unifont.org/index.html http://www.wazu.jp/ You're looking for the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs on Plane 1. http://www.unicode.org/charts/

Hi David. I've tried many different fonts but the issue remains. I never had this issue before with these same fonts - Arial, TNR, etc.

Edit: I keep many symbols that I like - like the tulip, trash, etc. in a text file. For a long time, all those symbols were viewable without issue.

Originally Posted by scasey AwesomeMachine was probably referring to GNOME Character Map, a GUI program that contains a drop-down list of fonts so one can see what characters are included in each font.

So was I! As I said, it shows the characters from the selected font where available and from any other font where not. I've just checked, and I have the 2017 version 10.0.2.

Originally Posted by linustalman Hi. Today, I noticed that not all ascii characters are showing in text editors (I tried geany, pluma, LO writer, etc.). The automatic encoding part of Pluma is not on by default.

Install some fonts with more symbols. On Debian, I install fonts-symbola and ttf-unifont and get pretty good symbol coverage.

Originally Posted by Myk267 Install some fonts with more symbols. On Debian, I install fonts-symbola and ttf-unifont and get pretty good symbol coverage.

I went to install fonts-symbola and that was all was needed. I can now see all of the characters in Pluma, LO Writer, etc. - regardless of what font I use.

Thank you Myk267.