8-bit character encoding for the Greek language
ISO/IEC 8859-7| Company type | Character encoding standard |
|---|
| Industry | Information technology |
|---|
| Predecessor | ELOT 928 (1986) |
|---|
| Founded | 1987 |
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| Products | 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character set for Latin/Greek alphabet |
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ISO/IEC 8859-7:2003, titled Information technology — 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets — Part 7: Latin/Greek alphabet, belongs to the ISO/IEC 8859 collection of ASCII-derived character encodings, initially released in 1987. Commonly referred to as Latin/Greek, this encoding was developed to accommodate the contemporary Greek language. The first edition from 1987 corresponded with the Greek national standard ELOT 928 established in 1986. The revision in 2003 introduced three additional symbols: 0xA4 (the euro sign U+20AC), 0xA5 (drachma sign U+20AF), and 0xAA (Greek ypogegrammeni U+037A).
In Windows platforms, Microsoft designated code page 28597 (Windows-28597) to represent ISO-8859-7. IBM implemented code page 813 for the original set, while CCSID 4909 incorporated the euro sign, and CCSID 9005 further included the drachma sign and ypogegrammeni.
The IANA-recognized charset name for this encoding is ISO-8859-7, which is generally paired with C0 and C1 control codes from ISO/IEC 6429. Despite this, modern software prefers Unicode, particularly UTF-8, for Greek text due to its extensive glyph repertoire that supports both contemporary and classical Greek scripts.
Codepage layout
| Code
|
Character
|
Description
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| Code
|
Character
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Description
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- U+00A0 NO-BREAK SPACE (NBSP)
- U+2018 LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK (‘)
- U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK (’)
- U+00A3 POUND SIGN (£)
- U+20AC EURO SIGN (€) [introduced in 2003]
- U+20AF DRACHMA SIGN (₯) [introduced in 2003]
- U+00A6 BROKEN BAR (¦)
- U+00A7 SECTION SIGN (§)
- U+00A8 DIAERESIS (¨)
- U+00A9 COPYRIGHT SIGN (©)
- U+037A GREEK YPOGEGRAMMENI (ͺ) [introduced in 2003]
- U+00AB LEFT-POINTING DOUBLE ANGLE QUOTATION MARK («)
- U+00AC NOT SIGN (¬)
- U+00AD SOFT HYPHEN (SHY)
- U+2015 HORIZONTAL BAR (―)
| Code
|
Character
|
Description
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- U+00B0 DEGREE SIGN (°)
- U+00B1 PLUS-MINUS SIGN (±)
- U+00B2 SUPERSCRIPT TWO (²)
- U+00B3 SUPERSCRIPT THREE (³)
- U+0384 GREEK TONOS (΄)
- U+0385 GREEK DIALYTIKA TONOS (΅)
- U+0386 GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA WITH TONOS (Ά)
- U+00B7 MIDDLE DOT (·)
- U+0388 GREEK CAPITAL LETTER EPSILON WITH TONOS (Έ)
- U+0389 GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA WITH TONOS (Ή)
- U+038A GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA WITH TONOS (Ί)
- U+00BB RIGHT-POINTING DOUBLE ANGLE QUOTATION MARK (»)
- U+038C GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMICRON WITH TONOS (Ό)
- U+00BD VULGAR FRACTION ONE HALF (½)
- U+038E GREEK CAPITAL LETTER UPSILON WITH TONOS (Ύ)
- U+038F GREEK CAPITAL LETTER OMEGA WITH TONOS (Ώ)
| Code
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Character
|
Description
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Uppercase Greek letters including accented variants:
Α, Β, Γ, Δ, Ε, Ζ, Η, Θ, Ι, Κ, Λ, Μ, Ν, Ξ, Ο, Π, Ρ, Σ, Τ, Υ, Φ, Χ, Ψ, Ω along with their tonal marks.
| Code
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Character range and description
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Lowercase Greek letters featuring tonos and dialytika:
α, β, γ, δ, ε, ζ, η, θ, ι, κ, λ, μ, ν, ξ, ο, π, ρ, σ/ς, τ, υ, φ, χ, ψ, ω including accented forms.
| Code
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Character range and description
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See also
External links
- ISO/IEC 8859-7:1999 – Single-byte 8-bit coded graphic character sets, Part 7: Latin/Greek script (draft dated June 10, 1999; replaced by ISO/IEC 8859-7:2003, released October 10, 2003)
- Standard ECMA-118: Single-byte 8-bit coded graphic character sets - Latin/Greek script (December 1986)
- ISO-IR 126 Right-hand segment of Latin/Greek script (November 30, 1986; superseded by ISO-IR 227)
- ISO-IR 227 Right-hand segment of Latin/Greek script (July 28, 2003)
