Confused about hexadecimal codes

[Jeremy H. Griffith]

On Sat, 19 May 2007 15:43:58 +0100, Pat Bensky <pbensky at catbase.com> wrote:

>I'm fiddling about with a program that creates MIF files and changing one of
>its behaviours - instead of inserting character tags for special characters,
>such as <Char Tab>, I want to use the hexadecimal code. According to the
>Frame Character_Sets manual, the hex code for a tab (for example) is \x08.
>However logic - and every other hex code reference that I've checked - tells
>me it's 09, not 08 (logical because the ASCII code for a tab is 9). 08 is
>the code for a backspace. Even odder is that the 08 code does seem to work
>as a tab with FrameMaker.
>
>Why is this different? And how can I tell which other codes are different
>from the standard set, other than checking each one individually?
>
>I'm puzzled about this! Anybody got any answers?

FrameMaker uses its own character set internally, similar to
(but not identical to) the Mac character set.  It's documented
in the FrameMaker Quick Reference booklet, and in:
  \yourframedir\OnlineManuals\Character_Sets.pdf
which appears to be the doc you are looking at.

A *lot* of codes are different from the standard ANSI set.  We
use mapping tables in Mif2Go.  Note that for "dingbats" fonts,
the mapping is *different* from that for "normal" fonts.  ;-)

-- Jeremy H. Griffith, at Omni Systems Inc.
  <jeremy at omsys.com>  http://www.omsys.com/