Offering Optimal €Uro Support

1.Introduction

With the introduction of the euro, the Commission’s employees will start using the new euro symbol (€) in their documents, spreadsheets, e-mail messages, etc. This can be done on PCs running the new reference configuration NTP 3.5, since the basic implementation of the new character has already been included there. However, after September 1997, when the NTP 3.5 Setup CD was published, the incorporation of the euro in IT systems and standards was still subject to ongoing development. Consequently, DI-STB had to adapt the first basic euro implementation of NTP 3.5 in order to comply with the newly enacted standards, in addition to providing new functionality and fixing problems.

This guide is focused on providing guidelines to the Local System Administrators and show them how to offer optimal euro support on NTP PCs and on assisting the local help desk team in solving problems related to the euro.

During 1998, some software updates were published which impact the implementation of the euro. These updates (Service Packs and Service Releases) together with the changes pertaining the euro implementation they provide are described here. This guide also clarifies which updates have to be installed so that the information given by the euro "user’s guide" (see Appendix A) is correct. This user’s guide will be distributed at the end of February 1999 and is to be found at the euro section of the office automation area on Softline.

2.Euro support components

In order to enable the euro sign to be typed, displayed and printed in 16-bit/32-bit applications on Windows NT PCs, several system files have to be updated.

1.Keyboard layout files

In order to type the €, you need a keyboard layout that includes it. NT provides a lot of different keyboard layouts in accordance with various national customs. The most important keyboard layouts for the European Commission are: British, Czech, Czech Qwerty, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, French Belgium, German, Greek 319, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish (214), Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, US and US international. The € has been added to all these layouts except for the Russian layout. The key or key combination (such as AltGr+E) that produces the € is defined in the keyboard layout files (kbdbe.dll, kbdit.dll,…) and consequently may be vary among the various national layouts (see page 16).

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3.Font files

In order to display and print the €, fonts are needed that include it. At the moment there are already several euro-enabled fonts available on the market. The most important among them such as Arial, Times New Roman and Courier New are installed on the NTP platform.

4.National language settings files

In order to support the € not only on 32-bit applications but also on legacy 16-bit applications as well, national language settings files (c_1252.nls, c_1253.nls...) are needed which include it. These files are used to convert the character's Unicode value to its code-page-based 8-bit value and vice versa. The euro's Unicode value is 20AC hexadecimal, its 8-bit value in most of Microsoft’s code tables (Windows-1252, Windows-1253…) is 80 hexadecimal.

3.Installation checklist

This section contains a brief checklist of the recommended installations. The detailed descriptions of the features provided by these installations are to be found in the next section. The corresponding installation notices are published on Softline.

1.NT Workstations

On NTP 3.5 and NTP 3.51 Workstations the following is needed to provide optimal euro support:

(1)Installation of the final NT Workstation euro script (see section 4.4) from the euro section of the office automation area on Softline.

(2)Installation of Service Release 2 for Office 97 (see section 4.3) from the office automation area on Softline

(3)Application of the system policy template (see sections 6.2, 6.2.3) from the euro section of the office automation area on Softline

2.NT Servers

In order to provide optimal support on NT printer servers the installation of the final NT Server euro product update from the euro section of the office automation area on Softline is needed. Servers that have been installed by Digital since May 98 don't need this installation. For more detailed information, please refer to section 4.5.

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5.Euro support sources

Basic euro support has already been provided in the EC's reference configuration NTP 3.5. However, product updates such as Service Pack 2 for NTP 3.5 and Service Release 2 for Office 97 adapt the original NTP 3.5's euro implementation in keeping with developments in the IT industry by adding new features and fixing problems.

Below follows the history and a description of the main properties of the various euro installations. For a detailed list of installed keyboards, fonts and national language files, please refer to Appendix B.

1.EC reference configuration NTP 3.5 (September 97)

NTP 3.5 already provided for full euro support. It installed European keyboard layout files that uniformly enabled the euro symbol to be produced via the key combination AltGr+E, in addition to a beta version of the euro-enabled core fonts Times New Roman, Arial and Courier New.

Limitations:

The beta version of the euro-enabled core fonts is outdated. In the final version the € design has been revised so that the size of the € harmonises with the size of figures and other currency symbols.

The fonts MS Sans Serif (used in system dialogs) and Tahoma (used in Excel dialogs) are not yet available.

Since September 97 the placement of the € on some European keyboards has changed. On most keyboards it is still produced via the key combination AltGr+E, however on the present British keyboard, for example,