user10867: One of the problems with PGN is that it requires ASCII, while names of players often contain non-ASCII characters. (And of course, many names are not written in the Latin alphabet ...) 
The background to this question is the rendering of non-ASCII characters in Arena 3.5.1 (on Windows 7), as in the image below. The names for white and black are Mittelsträß, Jürg and 王, 玥, respectively. Arena reads the UTF-8-encoded file as if it were encoded as Windows Codepage 1252. Editors such as Notepad++, SublimeText and JEdit identify the file as UTF-8 (which is the default encoding of all my plain text files, anyway). 

Here's an example PGN for testing:
[Event "Office Armageddon"]
[Site "Böblingen GER"]
[Date "??.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Mittelsträß, Jürg"]
[Black "王, 玥"]
[Result "*"]
[SetUp "1"]
[Mode "OTB"]
[Termination "unterminated"]

1. d2-d4 d7-d5 2. e2-e3 c7-c5 3. Bf1-b5+ Bc8-d7 4. a2-a4 Ng8-f6 5. d4xc5 e7-e5 6. b2-b4 Nb8-c6 7. Ng1-f3 Qd8-c7 8. Nb1-c3 a7-a6 9.  * 

(SCID assumes a system encoding if a PGN is encoded in UTF-8 without a byte order mark (BOM), but the BOM makes no difference in Areana 3.5.1.)
So I'd like to know if there is a Unicode-compatible alternative (ideally UTF-8) that is supported by some chess programs. (If not, PGN needs an overhaul.)

user11425: https://sourceforge.net/p/pgn4web/wiki/PGN_Support/
if you read that, you will notice:

in order for pgn4web to display those characters correctly, the PGN file should be saved in unicode UTF-8 format.
you can save PGN as UTF-8... Just open notepad > Save As... > Encoding and select UTF-8. and you can then add the appropriate player names! I've tested this, and it works with Arena Chess and a few others...
Hope this solves your problem. ~CSS

user5756: PGN databases created by ChessBase programs are encoded as UTF-8 by default, too.

10867: <p>One of the <a href="https://zuttobenkyou.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/problems-with-the-portable-game-notation-pgn-standard/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">problems with PGN</a> is that it requires ASCII, while names of players often contain non-ASCII characters. (And of course, many names are not written in the Latin alphabet ...) </p>

<p>The background to this question is the rendering of non-ASCII characters in Arena 3.5.1 (on Windows 7), as in the image below. The names for white and black are <code>Mittelsträß, Jürg</code> and <code>王, 玥</code>, respectively. Arena reads the UTF-8-encoded file as if it were encoded as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows-1252" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Windows Codepage 1252</a>. Editors such as Notepad++, SublimeText and JEdit identify the file as UTF-8 (which is the default encoding of all my plain text files, anyway). </p>

<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/oe6aX.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/oe6aX.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

<p>Here's an example PGN for testing:</p>

<pre><code>[Event "Office Armageddon"]
[Site "Böblingen GER"]
[Date "??.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Mittelsträß, Jürg"]
[Black "王, 玥"]
[Result "*"]
[SetUp "1"]
[Mode "OTB"]
[Termination "unterminated"]

1. d2-d4 d7-d5 2. e2-e3 c7-c5 3. Bf1-b5+ Bc8-d7 4. a2-a4 Ng8-f6 5. d4xc5 e7-e5 6. b2-b4 Nb8-c6 7. Ng1-f3 Qd8-c7 8. Nb1-c3 a7-a6 9.  * 
</code></pre>

<p>(<a href="http://scidvspc.sourceforge.net/doc/Encoding.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">SCID</a> assumes a system encoding if a PGN is encoded in UTF-8 without a byte order mark (BOM), but the BOM makes no difference in Areana 3.5.1.)</p>

<p>So I'd like to know if there is a <strong>Unicode-compatible alternative (ideally UTF-8)</strong> that is supported by some chess programs. (If not, PGN needs an overhaul.)</p>
 11425: <p><a href="https://sourceforge.net/p/pgn4web/wiki/PGN_Support/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://sourceforge.net/p/pgn4web/wiki/PGN_Support/</a></p>

<p>if you read that, you will notice:</p>

<p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/MkmBd.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/MkmBd.png" alt="Screenshot"></a>
 <code>in order for pgn4web to display those characters correctly, the PGN file should be saved in unicode UTF-8 format.</code></p>

<p>you <em>can</em> save PGN as UTF-8... Just open <code>notepad &gt; Save As... &gt; Encoding</code> and select <code>UTF-8</code>. and you can then add the appropriate player names! I've tested this, and it works with Arena Chess and a few others...</p>

<p>Hope this solves your problem. ~CSS</p>
 5756: <p>PGN databases created by ChessBase programs are encoded as UTF-8 by default, too.</p>
