uni2ascii

Aimed at software developers and casual users alike, uni2ascii is a free and open-source tool that gives you the possibility to convert text between ASCII and Unicode format. It's useful for including the Unicode text in your program's source code, typing text in Unicode format in web applications which support this character set, as well as for debugging purposes.

The downloaded package includes the source code and it's comprised of three programs. The entire functionality relies on uni2ascii and ascii2unii, while the third program, called u2a, represents a graphical interface for the other two.

This GUI has a simple design and provides a fast method for performing conversion tasks. At the same time, it displays several advanced settings for experienced users. However, you can begin by selecting the mode of conversion: ASCII to Unicode, or vice versa.

The text content can be loaded from XML files and converted to a new file by establishing the saving directory and output file name. You can preview text in ASCII format, such as descriptions and examples, as well as personalize some settings before carrying out the conversion task.

For instance, it's possible to strip diacritics, remove enclosures, review stylistic equivalents, convert linefeed or space characters, add blank space after each item, as well as convert to uppercase hexadecimal numbers.

Text was quickly converted to Unicode and ASCII format in our tests, during which the utility remained light on system resources consumption. It was stable throughout our entire evaluation, and didn't freeze, crash or show errors.

Bottom line is that uni2ascii offers a streamlined method not only for programmers who want to integrate Unicode-to-ASCII and ASCII-to-Unicode functionality into their own freeware products, but also for general users.