ISPF multicultural support

Note: The term "multicultural support" has replaced the previous term "National Language Support" (or "NLS").

To make ISPF available at your installation in a language other than or in addition to English, follow these instructions. You can install as many of the supported languages as needed by your installation.

  1. Allocate and load libraries specific to the language. See the z/OS® Program Directory in the z/OS Internet library for installation instructions.
  2. Optionally, set up a default language for your installation.

    With the standard version of ISPF, the default session language is English. You must invoke ISPF (ISPSTART) with a language keyword to get the session in a different language. If ISPF is used at your installation primarily in a non-English language, it is recommended that you change the default language. The benefits of doing this are:

    • Not having to enter the language keyword when invoking ISPSTART
    • Improved initialization time
    • Possibly smaller LPA use
    • Initialization error messages are issued in the default language.
    • See Changing the session language default value for further details.
  3. Set up the execution environment.
    To run ISPF in any session language, perform these steps:
    • Allocate panel, message, skeleton, table, and profile table libraries according to the language desired. The ddnames ISPPLIB, ISPMLIB, ISPSLIB, ISPTLIB do not change with the language used.
    • Issue the ISPSTART command (with the desired language keyword if this language is different from the default language).