A: The Unicode Standard is not a software program, nor is it a font. It is a character encoding system, like ASCII, designed to help developers who want to create software applications that work in any language in the world.

If all you need is to create a multilingual text or write a document or send e-mail in another language, then a Unicode-compliant text editor, mail program, or word processing package will do the job. Please see the following pages on our web site for further information about the standard and where to look for help:

• Basic information about “What is Unicode?”:
  http://www.unicode.org/standard/WhatIsUnicode.html
• Information about fonts, keyboards, and products known to support Unicode:
  http://www.unicode.org/resources/
• Introductory page to the standard:
  http://www.unicode.org/standard/standard.html

If you are a developer starting to learn about using Unicode, you should read the latest version of the Unicode Standard to find out more about Unicode. In addition to the pages listed above, please see:

• Frequently Asked Questions:
  http://www.unicode.org/faq/
• Unicode mail list (online discussion forum):
  http://www.unicode.org/consortium/distlist.html