UTF-8 is short for ''Unicode Transformation Format, 8-bit representation''.  A way of representing UniCode as a stream of bytes, with the advantage that legacy AsciiCode documents are also valid UTF-8 documents.  Also, UTF-8 is independent of byte order.

See http://www.unicode.org/faq/utf_bom.html

----

UTF-8 was designed by KenThompson and RobPike in 1992, to give PlanNineFromBellLabs UniCode support.

----

As of May 2006, UTF-8 is the reported encoding used by WardsWiki.  Prior to May 2006, Wiki sent out neither a CharacterSet meta-tag nor Content-Type HTTP header on web pages, which meant that the user's WebBrowser used whatever local character set was used by the system, or whatever default encoding was set up in the browser's preferences.

As an aid for editing international text on this wiki, please see UtfEightValuesForUmlauts.