Editing Korean language and computers (section)

== {{anchor|Character encodings}}Character encoding ==
{{See also|ISO/IEC 2022|Extended Unix Code#EUC-KR|KPS 9566|GB 12052|List of modern Hangul characters in ISO/IEC 2022–compliant national character set standards}}
In [[rfc:1557|RFC 1557]], a method known as [[ISO-2022-KR]] for seven-bit encoding of Korean characters in [[email]] was described. Where eight [[bit]]s are allowed, EUC-KR encoding is preferred. These two encodings combine US-ASCII ([[ISO/IEC 646|ISO 646]]) with the Korean standard [[KS X 1001]]:1992<ref name="qk">{{cite web |url=http://examples.oreilly.com/cjkvinfo/AppL/ksx1001.pdf |title=KS X 1001:1992}}</ref> (previously named KS C 5601:1987). Another character set, [[KPS 9566]] (similar to KS X 1001), is used in [[North Korea]].

The international [[Unicode]] standard contains special characters for the Korean language in the [[Hangul]] phonetic system. Unicode supports two methods. The method used by [[Microsoft Windows]] is to have each of the [[Hangul#Unicode|11,172]] syllable combinations as code and a preformed font character. The other method encodes letters (''[[Hangul#Letters|jamos]]'') and lets the software combine them correctly. The Windows method requires more font memory but allows better shapes, since it is complicated to create stylistically correct combinations (preferable for documents).

Another possibility is stacking a sequence of [[Hangul#Jamo|medial]](s) (''jungseong'') and a sequence of [[Hangul#Jamo|final]](s) (''jongseong'') or a [[Middle Korean]] pitch mark (if needed) on top of the sequence of [[Hangul#Jamo|initial]](s) (''choseong'') if the font has medial and final ''jamo'' with zero-width spacing inserted to the left of the cursor or caret, thus appearing in the right place below (or to the right of) the initial. If a syllable has a horizontal medial ({{lang|ko|ㅗ}}, {{lang|ko|ㅛ}}, {{lang|ko|ㅜ}}, {{lang|ko|ㅠ}} or {{lang|ko|ㅡ}}), the initial will probably appear further left in a complete syllable than in preformed syllables due to the space that must be reserved for a vertical medial, making aesthetically poor what may be the only way to display Middle Korean hangul text without resorting to images, romanization, replacement of obsolete jamo or non-standard encodings. However, most current fonts do not support this.

The Unicode standard also has attempted to create a unified [[CJK characters|CJK]] character set which can represent Chinese ([[Hanzi]]) and the Japanese ([[Kanji]]) and Korean ([[Hanja]]) derivatives of this script through [[Han unification]], which does not discriminate by language or region in rendering Chinese characters if the typographic traditions have not resulted in major differences in what a character looks like. Han unification has been criticized.