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Storing Unicode text with Paradox and dBASE

As the character/memo fields of Paradox and dBASE tables do not accept double or multi byte characters as used with Unicode text, the only way to store Unicode text within Paradox and dBASE tables is to store the Unicode text as RTF text within Memo or FmtMemo fields, as for example:

Illustration above from PdxEditor displaying a Paradox Memo field - interface will possibly be different in other applications.

Storing Unicode source text into RTF actually bypasses the single byte character limitation by converting multi byte characters into RTF-codes using single byte characters from the 7-bit ASCII character set.

Precautions

However, take care, as with other Paradox applications, if RTF is not stored in the specialized FmtMemo type field type, RTF-coded text may display unrecognized:

If needed, you may transfer the RTF-content from a plain Memo field into a (ad hoc) FmtMemo field by SQL as:
UPDATE TableName
SET
  FmtMemoTargetField = MemoSourceField

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PdxEditor Application Help, 14 July 2026; © 2010-2026 Niels Knabe