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# Appendix I: Internationalization Support

### Contents

This appendix is informative, not normative.

## I.1 Introduction

This appendix provides a brief summary of SVG's support for internationalization. The appendix is hyperlinked to the sections of the specification which elaborate on particular topics.

## I.2 Internationalization and SVG

SVG is an application of XML [XML10] and thus supports Unicode [UNICODE] [UNICODE21], which provides universal 16-bit encoding for the scripts of the world's principal languages.

Additionally, SVG provides a mechanism for precise control of the glyphs used to draw text strings, which is described in Alternate glyphs. This facility provides:

- access to glyphs which are not defined in standard Unicode [UNICODE]
- the ability to follow the guidelines for normalizing character data for the purposes of enhanced interoperability (see [CHARMOD]), while still having precise control over the glyphs that are drawn.

SVG supports:

- Horizontal, left-to-right text found in Roman scripts (see the 'writing-mode' property)
- Vertical and vertical-ideographic text (see the 'writing-mode' property)
- Arabic bi-directional text (see the 'direction' and 'unicode-bidi' properties)

SVG fonts support alternate glyphs for Arabic and Han text.

Multi-language SVG documents are possible by utilizing the system-language attribute to have different text strings appear based on the user's language setting.

## I.3 SVG Internationalization Guidelines

SVG generators should follow W3C guidelines for normalizing character data [CHARMOD] and should use the facilities for Alternate glyphs to override the standard glyphs used to represent normalized character data with specified glyphs.

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