Subject: Umlaut et al.

From: Andre HECK <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 02 Mar 95 17:25:26 +0100

Wrt to the question raised by Hans-Martin on umlauts, I went through this
before for my databases and related products. Here is the policy adopted.

The problem is more general than for umlauts. It concerns any accentuated
or special character (such as a with cedilla in Polish, and so on). I have
currently tables of about ninety special characters coded in such a way
that they can be translated into ascii, TeX or HTML(+). The list regularly
grows longer as TeX allows producing all kinds of characters (including
sanscript, and so on).

For the databases StarWorlds and StarBits, the output is currently in 
plain ascii (we intend to move to HTML(+) in the future), so the umlauted
characters are translated in the usual way: ae, ue, Ae, Ue, etc.
Everyone can understand the output of these databases. You have to expect
that most people querying the databases are a bit lost with our special
characters, and some of the customers have not even the ability to
translate or display properly HTML(+) codings.

For the database StarHeads, some people with accentuated characters in
their name or who know HTML(+) well enough are able to code the queried
names properly. The other ones will not do it. Therefore I offer the two
possibilities. Thus the outgoing director of Strasbourg Observatory is 
appearing in the database twice: once as CREZE and the other one as
CR&Eacute;Z&Eacute; - a real enjoyment ...

As you could understand from the above, the paper versions StarGuides
and StarBriefs are produced with the TeX coding. Some customers 
received electronic subsets coded either in TeX or in ascii.

A bit long to explain, but very simple in principle.
AH.
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