19.06.2015

How-To con­vert an ACL™ UNI­CODE pro­ject file to NONE-UNI­CODE

How-To con­vert an ACL™ UNI­CODE pro­ject file to NONE-UNI­CODE

Today’s blog post is for experienced ACL™ users who might have to deal with different ACL™ versions, especially a mix of UNICODE and NONE-UNICODE versions of the product.

As you might know, if you are an ACL™ customer, there are two different product lines. One is the UNICODE version, which allows to analyze a larger set of character encodings. If you for example might have to analyze Chinese SAP® data, this is the version you need, because only that one will allow you to display the Chinese symbols and even use it in data analytic commands.

 

Figure 1 – Example for ACL™ Project with UNICODE Data

However if you are restricted to let’s say German or standard English language only in vendor or customer names, addresses, material texts etc., then the NONE-UNICODE version of ACL™ will do. There are more criteria when to use which version, but the character sets your data can contain is the most obvious one.

If you have an existing ACL™ project file, which was created with a NONE-UNICODE version of ACL™ AN, this is a no-brainer. If you open it with the UNICODE version, ACL™ converts it automatically.

Figure 2 – An ACL™ NONE-UNICODE project can be opened with ACL™ UNICODE anytime

However sometimes it is a challenge if there is an ACL™ project, which is in UNICODE, and you want to open it with the NONE-UNICODE version. ACL™ will not allow you to do so, with an error message popping up. But why would you want to do this, as the NONE-UNICODE version cannot read/display the UNICODE data anyway? Imagine you have a UNICODE project file with NONE-UNICODE data, and/or a lot of scripts. And maybe you want to use these data and/or scripts in

ACL™ AN NONE-UNICODE, or upload it to ACL™ AX NONE-UNICODE – then the trouble starts.

 

Figure 3 – However you cannot open an ACL™ UNICODE project with ACL™ NONE-UNICODE

The good news is that there is an easy workaround for that. I can show it you, as being an ACL™ Certified Trainer I sometimes need different versions, so I have both versions available on the same machine.

1. Open the UNICODE *.ACL project file with a standard editor like Microsoft™ TM notepad using Right click->Open with…

Figure 4 – To convert, right-klick and open with Microsoft Notepad™

2. Choose “Save as” with a different name, and before clicking on the SAVE-button select in the dropdown besides ANSI as encoding.

 

Figure 5 – Choose “Save as…”

Figure 6 – Pick “ANSI” from the list of encodings

3. Now you should be able to open the ACL™ project with a NONE-Unicode version of ACL™ again

 

Figure 7 – Now open the newly created project file with ACL™ NONE-UNICODE

Figure 8 – The scripts are still there and can be used

I know that this is a workaround most of you might not need, because you do have only either UNICODE or NONE-UNICODE, and the same goes for your project files. However if this happens to you (maybe you are an Auditor working for Internal Audit, and you want to work together with the external Accountant, and you want to but cannot share the same ACL™ project file with ACL™ scripts because of that), you might be happy about that easy-to-use workaround. Side note: Of course, if you would have existing scripts in your projects, or table layouts that actually do contain characters which require UNICODE (like the Chinese symbols mentioned above) they cannot be displayed anymore (you will get squares or question marks). But the rest of your data which has NONE-UNICODE data types and especially the scripts I mentioned should be fine. If you have questions or comments, feel free to contact us at info@dab-gmbh.de

To contact the author you can also use LinkedIn or XING (you may have to login first before you can access these links). 

 

LinkedIn: http://de.linkedin.com/pub/stefan-wenig/54/1b8/b30

XING: https://www.xing.com/profile/Stefan_Wenig2?sc_o=mxb_p


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