[OS X TeX] Encoding problem with TexShop 3.5.9 and 3.6.0

[Herbert Schulz]

> On Feb 11, 2016, at 2:40 PM, Herbert Schulz <herbs at wideopenwest.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Feb 11, 2016, at 2:04 PM, Rolf Schmolling <rolf.schmolling at alumni.tu-berlin.de> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi Folks,
>> 
>> I am asking for your help. Ever since updating from TexShop 3.5.8 to 3.5.9 and now 3.6.0 I am facing a weird problem: 
>> When I open up one of my templates, TexShop complains „unknown encoding, using ISO Latin 9 instead“ (I am on a German system so this might have a different wording on an English system). 
>> 
>> In preferences I set TexShop up to use using Unicode UTF-16, in fact I never changed this. It seems not to matter whatever I select when saving a file for the first time, the error stays the same. When beforehand I could use real umlauts (ü, ö, ä,) now TexShop changes them to the TeX equivalents \“u etc.
>> 
>> I tried to start with a clean new file and just retype my templates, same complaint from TexShop.
>> 
>> I am on a MBP R, on OSX 10.10.5, all updates applied. 
>> 
>> The problem just goes away when I revert back to TexShop 3.5.8. 
>> 
>> Any ideas what procedure to follow?
>> 
>> Thanks a bunch,
>> 
>> Rolf
> 
> Howdy,
> 
> The default encoding for recent versions of TeXShop has changed from MacOSRoman to IsoLatin9. Do you have a line like
> 
> % !TEX encoding = xxxx
> 
> where xxxx is the encoding used for the file?
> 
> Is there a reason you have the default set to UTF-16 rather than UTF-8? In any case, are you using xe(la)tex or lua(la)tex to compile your files? If you're using pdflatex do you have a line containing \usepackage[....]{inputenc} where .... is the encoding used for the file?
> 
> Good Luck,
> 
> Herb Schulz
> (herbs at wideopenwest dot com)

Howdy,

By the way in TeXShop 3.59 and later there is a new Help document that is a Beginner's Guide to File Encoding.

I'll be your templates are NOT saved as UTF-16. I'd try to open them with UTF-8 (if they are traditional ASCII the UTF-8 setting will still be OK while I don't believe ASCII is a sub-set of UTF-16 since every character is 16 bits in that file version of Unicode.

DON'T simply try to change the file and save it. That can destroy the the contents of the file.

Also... ALL templates should have a 

% !TEX encoding = XXXXX

directive to tell TeXShop what encoding to use to open the file. It should also have a

\usepackage[xxxx]{inputenc}

line to tell latex or pdflatex what encoding is being used. If you are using xelatex or lualatex you should be using UTF-8 Unicode encoding by default or have some commands that tell those engines what encoding you are using.

PS: if your templates have accented characters you are are not using ASCII and you really NEED to have the information above. For German you usually use IsoLatin (latin1) or IsoLatin9 (latin9) but there are lots of possibilities.

Good Luck,

Herb Schulz
(herbs at wideopenwest dot com)