How to set the default system (locale?) encoding

[Steven P. Ulrick]

Hello, Everyone
I believe that I have made an honest attempt at scouring OpenOffice.org
(SRC680_m210 Build 1) to find an easy way to set this.  Also, I have
had no luck finding an answer on this list or any other reasonably
locatable location on the Internet.

That being the case, here is my problem.  I have used the Sword
Project's "diatheke" command to output the Bible into plain text files,
divided by chapter and book.
If (as an example) I open up "01-Genesis.txt" in KDE's KWrite, Genesis
4:22 looks like this (in the screenshots that follow, keep
an eye on the name "Tubal–cain"):
http://www.afolkey2.net/Projects/Genesis422-ss-001.jpg

If I do "Insert | File" from within OpenOffice.org, I get the following:
http://www.afolkey2.net/Projects/Genesis422-ss-002.jpg

If I open OpenOffice.org and just open the same file referred to in all
of these examples, it looks like this:
http://www.afolkey2.net/Projects/Genesis422-ss-003.jpg

Then, if I copy and paste the sample verse, book, entire Bible,
whatever from KWrite (which displays all occurrences of this
"hyphen-like" character correctly) into a new OpenOffice.org text
document, it looks like this:
http://www.afolkey2.net/Projects/Genesis422-ss-004.jpg

As you can see, this "hyphen-like character" displays correctly in
KWrite.  Also, it will display correctly in OpenOffice.org IF I copy
and paste it from a non-OpenOffice.org application.

The verse also correctly displays in gedit.  BUT, if I display the same
file using abiword, vi, emacs or less, it does not display correctly.

In "Tools | Encoding" in KWrite, I have it set to "utf8"

So I guess the question is, "What SHOULD my default encoding be set to,
and how and where do I set it so that it is respected by all
applications?"

My system is Fedora Core 6, and my Desktop Environment is KDE (Branch
3.5 compiled from SVN)

I wanted to get this off now to give all of you brilliant Ladies &
Gentlemen an opportunity to contemplate my issue.  In the meantime, I
uninstalled the OpenOffice.org that I was running, and I am now
downloading and installing the most recent FC6 version of OpenOffice.
That should make sure that the playing field is level :)  But, this
issue is not confined to OpenOffice.org, as stated above.  So, this is
"probably" either a Fedora Core 6 issue, or an issue with my system....

If you need any more information, please let me know.

Steven P. Ulrick


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