dBASE Plus is an international software tool which can accommodate many languages. Each language or language category uses its own character set, and each has its own way of sorting and relating its characters. dBASE Plus provides comprehensive language and character set support with multiple language drivers and automatic OEM–ANSI conversion as needed.

Users new to the Windows environment need to understand the difference between the OEM and ANSI character sets. Users who exchange data across national or linguistic boundaries need to understand how dBASE Plus uses language drivers to handle data in different languages.

This section of the Help system explains how dBASE Plus uses the OEM and ANSI character sets and discusses techniques for working with language drivers.