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Localization Resources

  • Apple Computer, Inc. Internationalization and Localization Resources (includes OS-X)

  • A Brief History of IBM and Sun's Internationalization Efforts
    The Java programming language and the Unicode character standard are well teamed to help developers compete in a global marketplace, but the road to internationalization has been a long one. Since the Java Developer's Kit was introduced four years ago, both Sun and IBM have worked constantly to improve its support of Unicode and other internationalization efforts. This article describes the history of those efforts.

  • Character Entity References used in HTML4

  • Charset detection in Mozilla by Frank Yung-Fong Tang

  • Lists of supported charsets for various platforms and browsers
  • Chinese, Japanese, and Korean character set standards and encoding systems by Ken Lunde
    This online document, available via ftp, provides information on CJK (that is, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) character set standards and encoding systems. In short, it provides detailed information on how CJK text is handled electronically.

  • "Developing International Software For Windows 95 and Windows NT," by Nadine Kano (entire book is on-line)

  • dmoz open directory containing 560+ organized links related to globalization

  • Global Application Developer Corner from Sun Microsystems
    The Sun Microsystems Global Application Developer Corner is a collection of information and resources to help developers globalize their applications. Resource material, sample code, testing tools, and useful links provide information for developers to learn more about software globalization.

  • Globalization guidelines from Microsoft

  • Globalization white papers from Uniscape (registration required)

  • HTML Unleashed: Internationalizing HTML
    No book on HTML is complete without a section on the ways to overcome the pronounced Western bias in the language and to provide for its fruitful application in the worldwide multilingual environment. This chapter covers the main approaches to this problem, both those used by practicing webmasters all around the world and those devised by standard-setting bodies.

  • "How to Internationalize JSP-based Web Sites" by Govind Seshadri

  • Information on ISO 8859-1
    This FAQ discusses topics related to the use of ISO 8859-1 based 8 bitcharacter sets. It discusses how to use European (Latin American)national character sets on UNIX-based systems and the Internet.

  • i18n gurus
    i18n gurus is a non-profit open i18n resources directory. The site is aimed at developers and project managers involved in i18n projects. It tries to gather links to all the resources that could be useful in internationalization projects (from international standards specifications to character set tutorials).

  • the i18n guy
    Tex Texin's site of internationalization, localization, standards, and amusements

  • i18n.com
    Barry Caplan's site featuring information on localization, internationalization and resources for creating global software.

  • International Font FAQ
    Lots of good information on international charsets and fonts. Lists fonts which are available free of charge,via the internet.

  • Internationalization and Localization Overview by W3C
    The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential as a forum for information, commerce, communication, and collective understanding.

  • Internationalization Testing
    Some internationalization (i18n) principles and practices on how to test and verify your product for global-readiness.

  • Introduction to Microsoft's MLang
    MLang implements a set of services that is designed to help make software that interacts with Internet data more international. More specifically, MLang helps solve problems presented by the multilingual environment that exists for software today. This article describes the services that are provided by the MLang Component Object Model (COM) object.

  • ISO 639-2 (3-letter language codes)
    This is the official site of the ISO 639-2 Registration Authority and thus is the only one authorized by ISO. ISO 639 provides two sets of language codes, one as a two-letter code set (639-1) and another as a three-letter code set (this part of ISO 639) for the representation of names of languages. ISO 639-1 was devised primarily for use in terminology, lexicography and linguistics.

  • ITS Requirements Document (Requires membership in group lisa-its)

  • Java Cookbook: Creating Global Applications
    Contains an overview of the internationalization features in Java.

  • The Java International API

  • Java Internationalization and Localization Toolkit
    The JavaTM Internationalization and Localization ToolKit (Java I18n/L10n ToolKit) is a toolkit for rapid Java applications internationalization and localization development. It will reduce significantly the cost and time for internationalization and localization development.

  • JAVA Internationalization - An Overview

  • JAVA internationalization links

  • JAVA Internationalization - Localization with ResourceBundles

  • JAVA Internationalization Tutorial

  • JavaWorld article (Internationalize JSP-based Websites)

  • JavaWorld article (Internationalize your software)

  • "Localisation Considerations in DTD Design," by Richard Ishida

  • Localization 101 FAQ by International Consulting

  • "The Localization Process: Globalizing your Code and Localizing your Site," by Sjoert Ebben and Gwyneth Marshall (Microsoft Corporation)

  • Localization testing checklist (from Nadine Kano's book)

  • Microsoft Global Developers' Site

  • Perl, unicode and i18n FAQ
    Unicode is a 16-bit character set encoding and related semantics for simultaneously representing all modern written languages (and more). Unicode is the key technology for globalizing software, and has been implemented in Internet and database software. With that power comes a price: Unicode is a complicated standard that requires skill and tools support to implement. This document was written to explain Unicode and international programming to two audiences, Perl porters (developers) and Perl users.

  • Perl tutorial on locale handling
    Perl supports language-specific notions of data such as ``is this a letter'', ``what is the uppercase equivalent of this letter'', and ``which of these letters comes first''. These are important issues, especially for languages other than English--but also for English: it would be naïve to imagine that A-Za-z defines all the ``letters'' needed to write in English. Perl is also aware that some character other than '.' may be preferred as a decimal point, and that output date representations may be language-specific. The process of making an application take account of its users' preferences in such matters is called internationalization (often abbreviated as i18n); telling such an application about a particular set of preferences is known as localization (l10n).

  • A Practical Guide to Localization by Bert Esselink
    A Practical Guide to Localization by Bert Esselink has now been fully updated and revised to reflect the latest technologies, best practices, and industry developments. The book was written for technical translators, localization engineers, testing engineers, desktop publishers, project managers, and anyone else who may be involved in the release of multilingual products. This site contains references and links relevant to technical translation and localization.

  • The Silicon Valley Localization Forum

  • "16 Steps to Globalising your Website," by eTranslate

  • Sun Software Product Internationalization Taxonomy

  • "Translation is not Enough. Considerations for Global Internet Development," by John Harris and Ryan McCormack (Sapient Corporation)

  • A Tutorial on Character Code Issues
    This document tries to clarify the concepts of character repertoire, character code, and character encoding especially in the Internet context. It specifically avoids the term character set, which is confusingly used to denote repertoire or code or encoding. ASCII, ISO 646, ISO 8859 (ISO Latin, especially ISO Latin 1), Windows character set, ISO 10646 (UCS), Unicode, UTF-8, UTF-7, MIME, and QP are used as examples. This document in itself does not contain solutions to practical problems with character codes (but see section Further reading). Rather, it gives background information needed for understanding what solutions there might be, what the different solutions do - and what's really the problem in the first place.

  • Unicode Consortium home page
    The Unicode Consortium is responsible for defining the behavior and relationships between Unicode characters, and providing technical information to implementers. The Consortium cooperates with ISO in refining the specification and expanding the character set.

  • Unicode Primer from Language Partners
    With the expansion of the Web and the evolution of Windows/NT and Windows/2000, it is more inportant than ever to have a basic understanding of the concepts of Unicode. Here's a first primer on the subject to help you get started.

  • Unicode 3.1 -- The Nitty Gritty from IBM

  • "Web Technologies Localization Handbook," by Rubric (on-line, registration required)

  • Win32 internationalization checklist (from Nadine Kano's book)

  • www.globalization.com
    A portal to information about globalization, internationalization, localization and translation.

  • XenCraft
    Provides training on internationalization, localization, project management and the like

  • XML internationalization FAQ from opentag.com

  • Yamada Language Center Font Archive
    Our non-English Font Archive is designed to assist users who wish to display or type non-English fonts on their computers.