There are two ways to specify character set information when working with Shapefiles.
The shapefile format makes use of a "dbf" database to store attribute data; depending on the character set the data is recorded in we will need to interpret the attributes differently.
You may need to change the character set for a shapefile if you are having trouble displaying shapefiles created using several different languages.
You can set the "Default" character set in the preferences dialog. (Do a search for character set). This declares the character set that will be used the first time a shapefile is added to the catalog or to a map.
This setting can be helpful if your organization works with many shapefiles created with the same language.
Once a Shapefile is in the catalog its Character set can be modified by:
For convenience you can select many Shapefiles and change them all with a single operation.
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