How to Convert Big5-HKSCS Encoded File?

Big5-HKSCS Encoded File and Unicode Encoded File

As non-ASCII character, each Chinese character has to be encoded into multi-byte code. Among various encoding schemes, Big5 is the most common used scheme for traditional Chinese encoding. For example, characters "香港深水" are encoded into "ADBB B4E4 B260 A4F4".

There are some Chinese characters only used in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), such as Personal-used Names, District Names and some special Cantonese dialect, which are not included in big5 scheme. The new set of HKSCS-2001 version contains 4818 characters that are not included in the Big-5 scheme but are commonly used in Hong Kong. The code allocation scheme for Big5 was given as the extension of Big-5 scheme. For example, characters "香港深水" are encoded into "ADBB B4E4 B260 A4F4 96F5" with the last two bytes "96F5" as the extension of Big5 scheme.

For files containing characters in the extension of Big-5 scheme, are named Big5-HKSCS encoded files. Those files are encoding scheme system depended and cannot be access by other system like GB systems, which are common used in the Mainland China. Another encoding system provides a unique number for every character, no matter what the platform and what the languages are. This is called Unicode. Windows 2000 is Unicode based platform and thus is a multilingual system.

For example, "香港深水" are signed with unicode3.0 "9999 6E2F 6DF1 6C34 57D7", no matter which language of your Unicode based platform. The Unicode encoded scheme is getting more and more popular because of its system independence.

A Conversion Utility (Convert Big5-HKSCS Encoded File)

The BIG5-HKSCS encoded File Conversion System (BFCS), developed by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, is for converting BIG5-HKSCS encoded file into Unicode encoded file. It is an integrated system because it supports text based files as well as Microsoft Office applications files. It also has an integrated and yet easy to use interface. The features of the system are listed as follows:

• Abilities to convert text based file types (Text file, HTML file & Rich Text Format file) and Microsoft Office Application file types (Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel & Microsoft PowerPoint). The conversion can be single file conversion as well as whole folder batch conversion.
  
  
• Integrated powerful graphical user-friendly interface.
  
  
• Conversion information such as the source and destination folders, conversion file types filter settings and additional settings can be saved as individual configuration file for each independent conversion project and retrieved later whenever necessary.
  
  
• Output Log File will be produced for each conversion batch, thus allowing the user to have a clear understanding of the result of each conversion batch. (And for user to double-check the validation of the links embedded in the files.)
  
  
• The BFCS can be used on Microsoft Windows 95 and Microsoft Windows 98. The Installation Wizard allows the user to install the BFCS System with only just a few clicks of buttons.

Here, we provide an on-line BFCS Demo Version .