Some PCs show characters arroneous

[mlara]

Hello.

I'm software developer and I have a program that executes on any Windows platform. It's developed with Delphi. The program generate several reports. My PC show well the reports, however in some PCs the special characters, so well as á, é, í, ó, and ú, looks wrong, like characters of language of China.

¿How I can setup those PCs for that show well the special characters?

Thanks.

Tengo un programa que genera varios reportes. En mi PC se ven bien los reportes, sin embargo en algunos PCs los caracteres especiales tales como ´´a, é, í, ó, y ú, se ven mal, como caracteres del idioma chino.

¿Cómo puedo configurar esos PCs para que muestren bien los caracteres especiales?

Gracias.

 

[bcastner]

Check the settings difference between working and non-working computers through Control Panel, Regional and Language settings, Advanced tab.

 

[Madawc]

Computers were invented and developed in Britain and the USA, where the language was standardised with an irrational spelling and no accents. Accented vowels get lumped in with 'special characters' as things just a few people will use.

Worse, most PCs use ASCII, which is standard for the first 128 characters but variable for the other 128. This is because it originated as a code for 7-hole paper tape and it was convenient for US computer developers to work with.

bcastner's advice may fix it. Failing this, you might have to use Unicode, where such problems are apparantly fixed.

Madawc Williams (East Anglia, UK)