Why does Alt+0130 give me a comma instead of é?

It's not a comma but ‚, the German low quote, which is what 130 means in the Windows-1252 table the zero selects. Leave the zero off and Alt+130 reads the DOS table, which gives é. Since ‚ passes for a comma at a glance, search anything you typed with the long code for stray ‚ characters.

Why does my old French file say caf‚ instead of café?

It was written under DOS, where é is byte 130, and you're reading it as Windows-1252, where 130 is the low quote ‚. The result looks like a typo with a stray comma, so it's easy to miss until a search for café finds nothing. Convert it in one line of Python: `Path('new.txt').write_text(Path('old.txt').read_text('cp850'), 'utf-8')`.

ASCII 130

Low single quoteLowercase e with acute accent

ASCII 130 is ‚ on Windows and é in old DOS.

‚ (Single Low Quote) is byte 130 in Windows-1252, Unicode U+201A. German opens a quote inside a quote with it, and Czech does the same: ‚so‘. The closing mark is ‘ (byte 145), the character English uses to open a quote, not ’. The real trap is that ‚ looks almost exactly like a comma. It isn't one (the comma is plain ASCII 0x2C), so a CSV parser won't split on it and a find-and-replace for commas skips it. If you see â€š on a page, that's its UTF-8 bytes E2 80 9A read as Windows-1252. The HTML entity is &sbquo;, and its double partner „ is byte 132.

é (Small E with Acute) is byte 130 in code page 437, the original IBM PC character set, and maps to Unicode U+00E9. Windows-1252 has the low quote ‚ at 130, so French DOS text read as Windows-1252 turns café into caf‚, which passes for a typo with a stray comma. Code page 850 kept é at 130 too. Its capital É is 144 in DOS.

PunctuationLatin Letter

Technical Details

Code Example

</>

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    /* On Windows (code page 1252) byte 130 is ‚.
       Modern terminals expect UTF-8, so print the code point, not the byte. */
    printf("\u201A\n");   /* UTF-8: E2 80 9A */

    unsigned char b = 130;         /* the raw Windows-1252 byte */
    printf("%d 0x%02X\n", b, b);    /* 130 0x82 */
    return 0;
}

Code Example

</>

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    /* Byte 130 is é only on a console using code page 437
       (chcp 437 on Windows, or DOSBox). On a UTF-8 terminal the
       lone byte 0x82 is invalid and prints as garbage, often �. */
    putchar(130);

    /* char is signed on x86, so a plain char holding 0x82 is -126.
       Use unsigned char when you compare or index by byte value. */
    char c = (char)130;
    unsigned char u = 130;
    printf("\n%d %d\n", c, u);   /* -126 130 */

    /* Portable: print the Unicode character as UTF-8 instead. */
    printf("\u00E9\n");          /* C3 A9 */
    return 0;
}

How to Type It

Windows: Hold Alt and type 0130 on the numeric keypad, with Num Lock on. The leading zero picks the Windows code page. No numeric keypad? In Word, type 201A and press Alt+X.
Mac: Press Option+Shift+0. Option+Shift+Z gives ¸ (cedilla), which looks similar but is a different character.
Linux: In GNOME, or any desktop running IBus, press Ctrl+Shift+U, type 201a, then Space. With a Compose key set up, press Compose, comma, apostrophe.
Phone: Tap the character at the top of this page to copy it.

How to Type It

Windows: Hold Alt and type 130 on the numeric keypad, with no leading zero. Windows reads it as a DOS code and inserts é.

é is also ASCII 233 on Windows, which has the full guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

It's not a comma but ‚, the German low quote, which is what 130 means in the Windows-1252 table the zero selects. Leave the zero off and Alt+130 reads the DOS table, which gives é. Since ‚ passes for a comma at a glance, search anything you typed with the long code for stray ‚ characters.
It was written under DOS, where é is byte 130, and you're reading it as Windows-1252, where 130 is the low quote ‚. The result looks like a typo with a stray comma, so it's easy to miss until a search for café finds nothing. Convert it in one line of Python: `Path('new.txt').write_text(Path('old.txt').read_text('cp850'), 'utf-8')`.

Frequently Asked Questions

It's not a comma but ‚, the German low quote, which is what 130 means in the Windows-1252 table the zero selects. Leave the zero off and Alt+130 reads the DOS table, which gives é. Since ‚ passes for a comma at a glance, search anything you typed with the long code for stray ‚ characters.
It was written under DOS, where é is byte 130, and you're reading it as Windows-1252, where 130 is the low quote ‚. The result looks like a typo with a stray comma, so it's easy to miss until a search for café finds nothing. Convert it in one line of Python: `Path('new.txt').write_text(Path('old.txt').read_text('cp850'), 'utf-8')`.

ASCII 130

Low single quoteLowercase e with acute accent

ASCII 130 is ‚ on Windows and é in old DOS.

Punctuation

Latin Letter

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {

/* On Windows (code page 1252) byte 130 is ‚.

Modern terminals expect UTF-8, so print the code point, not the byte. */

printf("\u201A\n"); /* UTF-8: E2 80 9A */

unsigned char b = 130; /* the raw Windows-1252 byte */

printf("%d 0x%02X\n", b, b); /* 130 0x82 */

return 0;

}

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {

/* Byte 130 is é only on a console using code page 437

(chcp 437 on Windows, or DOSBox). On a UTF-8 terminal the

lone byte 0x82 is invalid and prints as garbage, often �. */

putchar(130);

/* char is signed on x86, so a plain char holding 0x82 is -126.

Use unsigned char when you compare or index by byte value. */

char c = (char)130;

unsigned char u = 130;

printf("\n%d %d\n", c, u); /* -126 130 */

/* Portable: print the Unicode character as UTF-8 instead. */

printf("\u00E9\n"); /* C3 A9 */

return 0;

}