is a global option that specifies the character encoding used in reading and writing plain text data outside of the Wolfram System.


ExternalDataCharacterEncoding
is a global option that specifies the character encoding used in reading and writing plain text data outside of the Wolfram System.
Details

- The setting for ExternalDataCharacterEncoding is not used when writing files that contain font specification (e.g. styled text clipboards, RTF files). In such situations, the character encodings appropriate to the fonts are used.
- The default setting for this option is the global variable $SystemCharacterEncoding, which specifies the character encoding used by the operating system.
See Also
History
Introduced in 1999 (4.0)
Text
Wolfram Research (1999), ExternalDataCharacterEncoding, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/ExternalDataCharacterEncoding.html.
CMS
Wolfram Language. 1999. "ExternalDataCharacterEncoding." Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Wolfram Research. https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/ExternalDataCharacterEncoding.html.
APA
Wolfram Language. (1999). ExternalDataCharacterEncoding. Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Retrieved from https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/ExternalDataCharacterEncoding.html
BibTeX
@misc{reference.wolfram_2025_externaldatacharacterencoding, author="Wolfram Research", title="{ExternalDataCharacterEncoding}", year="1999", howpublished="\url{https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/ExternalDataCharacterEncoding.html}", note=[Accessed: 18-August-2025]}
BibLaTeX
@online{reference.wolfram_2025_externaldatacharacterencoding, organization={Wolfram Research}, title={ExternalDataCharacterEncoding}, year={1999}, url={https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/ExternalDataCharacterEncoding.html}, note=[Accessed: 18-August-2025]}