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HTML Encoding(Character Sets)
The web browser must know which character set to use for displaying the correct HTML page correctly.
From ASCII to UTF-8
ASCII was the first character encoding standard. ASCII has128 different characters that can be used on the internet: numbers (0-9), English letters (A-Z), and some special characters like! $ + – ( ) @ < > .
ISO-8859-1 was the default character set for HTML 4. This character set supported 256 different character codes. HTML 4 also supported UTF-8.
ANSI (Windows-1252) was the original Windows character set. ANSI is similar to ISO-8859-1, except that ANSI consists of 32 extra characters.
The HTML5 specification supports the web developers to use the UTF-8-character set, which covers all of the characters and symbols in the world.
he ASCII Character Set
ASCII makes use of the values from 0 to 31 (and 127) for control characters.
ASCII makes use of the values from 32 to 126 for letters, digits, and symbols.
ASCII makes use of the values from 128 to 255.
The ANSI Character Set (Windows-1252).
ANSI is similar to ASCII for the values from 0 to 127.
ANSI consists of a proprietary set of characters for the values from 128 to 159.
ANSI is similar to UTF-8 for the values from 160 to 255.
The ISO-8859-1 Character Set
ISO-8859-1 is similar to ASCII for the values from 0 to 127.
ISO-8859-1 does not use the values from 128 to 159.
ISO-8859-1 is similar to UTF-8 for the values from 160 to 255.
The UTF-8 Character Set
UTF-8 is similar to ASCII for the values from 0 to 127.
UTF-8 does not use the values from 128 to 159.
UTF-8 is similar to both ANSI and 8859-1 for the values from 160 to 255.
UTF-8 continues from the value 256 with more than 10 000 different characters.
For a closer look, study our Complete HTML Character Set Reference.