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                          Character Translation Issues


     *  MIME:   From  RFC1341/1521,   charset=ISO-8859-1  and   encoding
        quoted-printable  or  8bit  is  supported  both  for ingoing and
        outgoing  messages.  The  RFC1342/1522  header  extensions   are
        currently not supported.

     *  X-Charset  and  X-Char-Esc:   These  experimental  headers   are
        supported for both ingoing and outgoing messages, using  RFC1345
        character mnemonics and escape character ASCII 29.


                               Unresolved Issues

     *  In e-mail (netmail) areas, the  charset translation features do
        not yet work correctly. Please avoid using non-ascii  characters
        in message headers (to/from/subject).


     Using MIME Character Translation (RFC1341/1521)

     You must have these lines in your GOLDED.CFG:

         XLATCHARSET IBMPC   LATIN-1   IBM_ISO.CHS
         XLATCHARSET IBMPC   LATIN1QP  IBM_IQP.CHS
         XLATCHARSET LATIN-1 IBMPC     ISO_IBM.CHS

     The IBM_ISO.CHS, IBM_IQP.CHS and ISO_IBM.CHS files must be  present
     in the XLATPATH.

     To use MIME charset ISO-8859-1 and encoding 8bit in your  messages,
     you must have these lines in the appropriate group(s):

         XLATEXPORT LATIN-1
         XLATIMPORT LATIN-1

     This will add the following headers in your messages:

         MIME-Version: 1.0
         Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
         Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

     Note that 8bit encoded messages usually won't get through  unharmed
     in e-mail,  because the  SMTP protocol  is 7bit.  In newsgroups the
     problem apparently isn't so bad.  If you want your 8bit  characters
     to  get   to  the   destination  unharmed,   you  should   use  the
     quoted-printable encoding (see below).

     To use  MIME charset  ISO-8859-1 and  encoding quoted-printable  in
     your messages, you must have  these lines in the appropriate  group
     (s):

         XLATEXPORT LATIN1QP
         XLATIMPORT LATIN-1

     This will add the following headers in your messages:

         MIME-Version: 1.0
         Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
         Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

     When  quoted-printable  encoding  is  used,  8bit  characters   are
     translated to a three-character code starting with ASCII 61  ('='),
     followed  by  two  hexadecimal  characters  that  together form the
     hexadecimal  value  of  the  original  character  in  the   charset
     specified by the Content-Type header.

     Users must  be aware  that not  all reader  software recognize  and
     support  the  quoted-printable  format.  The  reader  software  may
     display the entire three-character code untranslated, or  translate
     the code imcompletely. If  the code is untranslated,  the displayed
     result is usually not pretty.


     Using Character Mnemonics Encoding (RFC1345)

     You must have these lines in your GOLDED.CFG:

         XLATESCSET  MNEMONIC IBMPC    MNE_IBM.ESC
         XLATCHARSET IBMPC    MNEMONIC IBM_MNE.CHS
         XLATCHARSET LATIN-1  IBMPC    ISO_IBM.CHS

     The MNEMONIC.ESC, IBM_MNE.CHS and ISO_IBM.CHS files must be present
     in the XLATPATH.

     To use character  mnemonics in your  messages, you must  have these
     lines in the appropriate group(s):

         XLATEXPORT MNEMONIC
         XLATIMPORT LATIN-1

     This will add the following headers in your messages:

         X-Charset: ISO_8859-1
         X-Char-Esc: 29

     When  character  mnemonic  encoding  is  used,  8bit characters are
     translated  to  a  three-character  code  starting  with  ASCII 29,
     followed  by  two  characters  that  together  form  a standardized
     mnemonic of the original 8bit character.

     Users must  be aware  that not  all reader  software recognize  and
     support this encoding format.  The reader software may  display the
     entire  three-character  code  untranslated,  omit  only the escape
     character  or  translate  the  code  incompletely.  If  the code is
     untranslated, the displayed result is usually not pretty.

     The  safest  choice  for  both  e-mail  and newsgroups is MIME with
     quoted-printable encoding.

     MIME  is  a  fully  documented  standard  (see RFC1522 or the older
     edition  RFC1341)  using  standard  headers.  It  is  fairly widely
     supported by (newer) reader software.

     The character  mnemonics are  documented in  RFC1345, but  the "X-"
     headers  are  not  documented  (to  the  authors  knowledge).   The
     existence  of  the  X-Charset/X-Char-Esc  headers  and the encoding
     method  was  found  and  deduced  from  sending  e-mails  with 8bit
     characters back and forth  between different addresses and  looking
     at the e-mail at the  destination. The translation of 8bit  e-mails
     and addition of the Xheaders appears to be done by routing software
     before sending them using 7bit transfer protocols like SMTP. It  is
     unknown what, if any,  reader software that supports  the character
     mnemonics.

     The main disadvantage of MIME 8bit and quoted-printable is that the
     character set is  limited to the  US-ASCII 7bit or  ISO-8859-1 8bit
     sets. The  character mnemonics  support most  or all  of the  16bit
     unicode character set.