Collate Sequence Sorting

[efcharvet 0]

I guess I'm in the mood to ask questions that have been in the back of my head for awhile...

 

One of the things that drives me absolutely crazy about TMG is that when I look for names in the Expanded Picklist, they are not truely in alphabetical order when Sort by: Surname, Given Name, Birth date is selected. This is not a problem in my other programs.

 

Although TMG does not recognize UNICODE, TMG does recognizes the full Western European character set. However, it sorts French names that begin with an accentuated characters, such as: É, Ç, or Î at the end of the letter group.

 

Current Example: INCORRECT:

ERTAUD

EXASSE

ÉMILE

ÉTOURNEAU

 

Should be:

ÉMILE

ERTAUD

ÉTOURNEAU

EXASSE

 

Currently, I use the « General » Collate Sequence under Preferences. If I select DUTCH, GERMAN, or SPANISH or one of the others, will this fix the Collate Sequence for my French names in the Expanded Picklist???

 

Thanks,

Earl

[Wiley 0]

The collating sequence works by sorting the bit pattern of the characters. Very simply, an 'É' (00C9) is a larger 'number' than just an 'E' (0045) no matter the language.

 

Take a look at the Windows Character Map. It displays the colating sequence of the selected language.

 

I'm not sure that there is any way around the problem.

[Terry Reigel 0]

You can change the Sort Surname for these name tags to force them to sort where you like them.

[efcharvet 0]

The collating sequence works by sorting the bit pattern of the characters. Very simply, an 'É' (00C9) is a larger 'number' than just an 'E' (0045) no matter the language.

 

Take a look at the Windows Character Map. It displays the colating sequence of the selected language.

 

I'm not sure that there is any way around the problem.

 

Thanks for the reply, but that isn't quite true. If you were correct, names that begin with the e-aigu (shown in the example) would sort after the end at the end of all names without accents. The fact is, the e-aigu sorts following all unaccentauted « e » names, and before the « f » names in TMG. This is true with other accentuated letted as well.

 

Regards,

Earl

[efcharvet 0]

You can change the Sort Surname for these name tags to force them to sort where you like them.

 

That's an acceptable work-around Terry.

 

Thanks,

Earl

[John Cardinal 0]

The correct solution is for TMG to support a French collating sequence. A workaround might be to try another collating sequence and see if it's better. The "General" sequence uses ASCII-Extended, but German doesn't, and German may group accented vowels where you want even if the characters are not truly part of the official German collating sequence because some areas in Germany have a significant French influence.