PATH Mac OS 8 and 9 Developer Documentation > Text Encoding Conversion Manager
Programming With the Text Encoding Conversion Manager

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Deciding Which Encoding Converter to Use

The Text Encoding Conversion Manager provides two converters--the Text Encoding Converter and the Unicode Converter--that you can use to handle text encoding conversion on the Mac OS.

The Text Encoding Converter is the primary converter for converting between different text encodings. It was designed to address most of your conversion requirements, and you should use it for most cases. You can use it to convert from one supported encoding to another. When you use the Text Encoding Converter, neither the source encoding nor the destination one must be Unicode, although they can be.

When you use the Unicode Converter, you always convert to or from Unicode; that is, either the source or the destination encoding must be Unicode. You should use the Unicode Converter if you are writing applications based in Unicode, such as a word processor or file system that operates in Unicode. Even when your application is not Unicode based, you might want to use the Unicode Converter for special cases where you want to control the conversion behavior more closely. The Unicode Converter is also the better choice if you want to map offsets for style run boundaries for styled text; the Text Encoding Converter does not offer this service.

The Text Encoding Converter

The Unicode Converter