Language options

Language

Output language. Controls the language that is used in the output. Does not apply to simple text output. The list of available languages depends on the currently installed language files. (Note: This setting does not affect the user interface language.) Depending on the language, you might also need to use Unicode character encoding for characters to render properly.

Note: Custom scripts that rely on language-specific text strings in the output might not run correctly when you change the output language. For more information, see the topic Script options.

User Interface. This setting controls the language that is used in menus, dialogs, and other user interface features. (Note: This setting does not affect the output language.)

Character Encoding and Locale

This controls the default behavior for determining the encoding for reading and writing data files and syntax files. You can change these settings only when there are no open data sources, and the settings remain in effect for subsequent sessions until explicitly changed.

Unicode (universal character set). Use Unicode encoding (UTF-8) for reading and writing files. This mode is referred to as Unicode mode.

Locale's writing system. Use the current locale selection to determine the encoding for reading and writing files. This mode is referred to as code page mode.

Locale. You can select a locale from the list or enter any valid locale value. OS writing system sets the locale to the writing system of the operating system. The application gets this information from the operating system each time you start the application. The locale setting is primarily relevant in code page mode, but it can also affect how some characters are rendered in Unicode mode.

There are a number of important implications for Unicode mode and Unicode files:

  • IBM® SPSS® Statistics data files and syntax files that are saved in Unicode encoding should not be used in releases of IBM SPSS Statistics before 16.0. For syntax files, you can specify the encoding when you save the file. For data files, you should open the data file in code page mode and then resave it if you want to read the file with earlier versions.
  • When code page data files are read in Unicode mode, the defined width of all string variables is tripled. To automatically set the width of each string variable to the longest observed value for that variable, select Minimize string widths based on observed values in the Open Data dialog box.

Bidirectional Text

If you use a combination of right-to-left (for example, Arabic or Hebrew) languages and left-to-right languages (for example, English), select the direction for text flow. Individual words will still flow in the correct direction, based on the language. This option controls only the text flow for complete blocks of text (for example, all the text that is entered in an edit field).

  • Automatic. Text flow is determined by characters that are used in each word. This option is the default.
  • Right-to-left. Text flows right to left.
  • Left-to-right. Text flows left to right.