Unicode replaces the Mac Roman encoding which has long been the internal character set of 4D. Unicode ensures consistency in text data regardless of the platform or language, meaning a much predictable and simplified code. It is the native format used by all major operating systems and its use in the 4D database engine has contributed to a significant degree in improving the overall performance. Unicode eliminates much of the problems related to character encoding and enables direct data exchange with most of the modern frameworks and applications. In this session, we will briefly go through the basics of Unicode; concepts such as Code Points, Glyphs, Surrogate Pairs, Composed Characters and Combining Characters will be explained. Then, we will see how a correct understanding of such features can be adopted in your existing and future codes.