A new Request for Comments is now available in online RFC libraries.


        RFC 1641:

        Title:      Using Unicode with MIME
        Author:     D. Goldsmith & M. Davis
        Mailbox:    david_goldsmith@taligent.com,
                    mark_davis@taligent.com
        Pages:      6
        Characters: 11,258
        Updates/Obsoletes:  none


The Unicode Standard, version 1.1, and ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993(E) jointly
define a 16 bit character set (hereafter referred to as Unicode) which
encompasses most of the world's writing systems.  However, Internet
mail (STD 11, RFC 822) currently supports only 7-bit US ASCII as a
character set.  MIME (RFC 1521 and RFC 1522) extends Internet mail to
support different media types and character sets, and thus could
support Unicode in mail messages.  MIME neither defines Unicode as a
permitted character set nor specifies how it would be encoded,
although it does provide for the registration of additional character
sets over time.  This document specifies the usage of Unicode within
MIME.

This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet community.
This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.
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Joyce K. Reynolds
USC/Information Sciences Institute