Word for Windows NT: Supported Characters in Filenames

The information in this article applies to:

• Microsoft Word for Windows NT, version 6.0

SUMMARY

Characters for filenames of documents saved in or opened from Word 6.0 for Windows NT must exist in both the Windows ANSI character set and the OEM character set to be valid. The U.S. version of Windows NT uses the IBM Extended character set (code page 437) as the OEM character set.

MORE INFORMATION

Characters that are supported:

• All ASCII alphabetic characters (both uppercase and lowercase)
• All ASCII numeric characters
• Spaces
• All of the following ASCII punctuation characters:

        ! # $ % & ' ( ) + , - . ; = @ [ ] _ ^ ` { } ~
  

• The following characters with grave accent: a e i o u
• The following characters with acute accent: E a e i o u
• The following characters with circumflex: a e i o u
• The following characters with tilde: N n
• The following characters with diaeresis: A O U a e i o u y
• All of the following extended characters:

        Character Description         ANSI Code   CP437 Code
        ---------------------         ---------   ----------
  
        Lowercase script letter F        131         159
        Inverted exclamation mark        161         173
        Cent sign                        162         155
        Pound sign (pound sterling)      163         156
        Yen sign                         165         157
        Feminine ordinal indicator       170         166
        Left pointing guillemet          171         174
        Not sign                         172         170
        Degree sign                      176         248
        Plus-or-minus sign               177         241
        Superscript 2                    178         253
        Micro sign                       181         230
        Middle dot                       183         250
        Masculine ordinal indicator      186         167
        Right pointing guillemet         187         175
        One-quarter fraction             188         172
        One-half fraction                189         171
        Inverted Question mark           191         168
        Uppercase letter A ring          197         143
        Uppercase letter AE              198         146
        Uppercase letter C cedilla       199         128
        Lowercase sharp S (ess-zed)      223         225
        Lowercase letter A ring          229         134
        Lowercase letter ae              230         145
        Lowercase letter c cedilla       231         135
        Division sign                    247         246
  
  

      Character Description            ANSI Code
      ---------------------            ---------

      Quotation mark (")                   34
      Asterisk (*)                         42
      Slash (/)                            47
      Colon (:)                            58
      Less than sign (<)                   60
      Greater than sign (>)                62
      Question mark (?)                    63
      Backslash (\)                        92
      Vertical bar (pipe) (|)             124
      Low single comma quotation mark     130
      Low double comma quotation mark     132
      Horizontal ellipsis (...)           133
      Dagger                              134
      Double dagger                       135
      Spacing circumflex                  136
      Per mille sign                      137
      Uppercase S hacek                   138
      Left pointing guillemet             139
      Uppercase OE                        140
      Single turned comma quotation mark  145
      Single comma quotation mark         146
      Double turned comma quotation mark  147
      Double comma quotation mark         148
      Bullet                              149
      En dash                             150
      Em dash                             151
      Raised tilde                        152
      Trademark                           153
      Lowercase S hacek                   154
      Right pointing quillemet            155
      Lowercase OE                        156
      Uppercase Y diaeresis               159
      Currency sign                       164
      Broken vertical bar                 166
      Section sign                        167
      Spacing diaeresis                   168
      Copyright sign                      169
      Soft hyphen                         173
      Registered trademark sign           174
      Spacing Macron (overline)           175
      Superscript 3                       179
      Spacing acute                       180
      Paragraph sign                      182
      Spacing cedilla                     184
      Superscript 1                       185
      Three quarters fraction             190
      Uppercase A grave                   192
      Uppercase A acute                   193
      Uppercase A circumflex              194
      Uppercase A tilde                   195
      Uppercase E grave                   200
      Uppercase E circumflex              202
      Uppercase E diaeresis               203
      Uppercase I grave                   204
      Uppercase I acute                   205
      Uppercase I circumflex              206
      Uppercase I diaeresis               207
      Uppercase Eth                       208
      Uppercase O grave                   210
      Uppercase O acute                   211
      Uppercase O circumflex              212
      Uppercase O tilde                   213
      Multiplication sign                 215
      Uppercase O slash                   216
      Uppercase U grave                   217
      Uppercase U acute                   218
      Uppercase U circumflex              219
      Uppercase U diaeresis               220
      Uppercase Y grave                   221
      Uppercase Thorn                     222
      Lowercase A tilde                   227
      Lowercase Eth                       240
      Lowercase O tilde                   245
      Lowercase O slash                   248
      Lowercase Y acute                   253
      Lowercase Thorn                     254

      Character Description            CP437 Code
      ---------------------            ----------

      Quotation mark (")                   34
      Asterisk (*)                         42
      Slash (/)                            47
      Colon (:)                            58
      Less than sign (<)                   60
      Greater than sign (>)                62
      Question mark (?)                    63
      Backslash (\)                        92
      Vertical bar (pipe) (|)             124
      All linedraw and shading         176 - 223
        characters
      Peseta sign                         158
      Not sign                            170
      Greek lowercase alpha               224
      Greek uppercase gamma               226
      Greek lowercase pi                  227
      Greek uppercase sigma               228
      Greek lowercase sigma               229
      Greek lowercase tau                 231
      Greek uppercase phi                 232
      Greek uppercase theta               233
      Greek uppercase omega               234
      Greek lowercase delta               235
      Infinity                            236
      Empty Set (diameter symbol)         237
      Lowercase epsilon (Latin)           238
      Intersection (cap)                  239
      Identical to                        240
      Greater than or equal to            242
      Less than or equal to               243
      Top half integral                   244
      Bottom half integral                245
      Almost equal to                     247
      Square root                         251
      Superscript lowercase N             252
      Black square                        254
      White square (quadrature)           255

REFERENCES

"The Unicode Standard, Worldwide Character Encoding, Version 1.0, Volume 1", various pages