The last MarcEdit update introduced a new Preference into the application — the ability to tell the application that all data compiled from the MarcEditor needs to be converted/saved as UTF8. The new option should make it easier for folks that receive data in MARC-8 formats to simply work on their records and then compile the data without worrying about doing any character conversions because MarcEdit will do them automatically if this option is set.
You can find this option on the MarcEditor tab in the preferences — just check the Save as UTF8 option.
[Updated:]
As of Nov. 12, 2012 — I added a second preference that allows users that require data to always be in MARC8 to set that option as well. Users now have the ability, through the preferences, to set the compilation bit for the MarcEditor. So, when working with data within the MarcEditor, when users compile that data back to MARC — the information will be converted to the predefined character encoding (either UTF8 or MARC8). This is obviously an optional setting. If these settings are not configured (and they are not be default) — the program will simply preserve the characterset of the records during compilation.
–TR
Comments
4 responses to “MarcEdit 5.8 – Auto convert all data to UTF8/MARC8 [Updated]”
For those whose ILS’s sadly still require Marc8 data, but use MarcEdit to massage marc from sources that may be UTF8 — is it possible to do the converse, tell MarcEdit to always save as Marc8, even if opened in UTF8?
Yes — there is. After you mentioned this — I added a new option to the Preferences. I’ve updated the post above to note the change.
–TR
What is ‘intellisense’? Like an auto-detection of encoding?
This has been around since MarcEdit 5.6. See: https://blog.reeset.net/archives/968
–TR