ISO/IEC 8859-10:1998

Overview

ISO/IEC 8859-10:1998 - "Information technology - 8‑bit single‑byte coded graphic character sets - Part 10: Latin alphabet No. 6" - defines an 8‑bit single‑byte character encoding intended for text and data processing in several Northern and Baltic languages. This second edition (1998) updates the 1992 edition and specifies a set of 191 graphic characters allocated within a 256‑position 8‑bit code table, with unique names and identifiers referenced to ISO/IEC 10646 (Unicode/ISO 10646 mapping).

Keywords: ISO/IEC 8859-10, ISO 8859-10, Latin alphabet No. 6, 8-bit single-byte, character set, encoding, Nordic languages, text encoding, Unicode mapping.

Key topics and technical requirements

• Character repertoire: Defines 191 non‑combining graphic characters (including SPACE, NO‑BREAK SPACE, SOFT HYPHEN) tailored for languages such as Danish, Faroese, Finnish, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Sami, Slovene, Swedish, English, Estonian, German, Greenlandic, Irish Gaelic (new orthography), and Latin.
• 8‑bit code table layout: Characters are placed in a 16×16 (00–FF hex) table; positions are identified using xx/yy or hexadecimal hk notation.
• Conformance rules:
  • Conformance for information interchange (CC‑data‑elements) and for devices (originating/receiving) is specified (clauses 2.1–2.2).
  • Originating devices must be able to supply and transmit the encoded characters; receiving devices must interpret and present them so users can identify and distinguish characters.
• Usage constraints:
  • Not intended to be mixed directly with other ISO/IEC 8859 parts; for multi‑set usage, use ISO/IEC 10367 with ISO/IEC 4873 (level 2 or 3).
  • Control functions may be selected from ISO/IEC 6429; combining characters are not part of this set.
• Mapping to Unicode: Each character has a unique identifier taken from ISO/IEC 10646 (facilitating Unicode interoperability).

Practical applications and users

Who uses ISO/IEC 8859-10:

• Software developers and system integrators implementing legacy text encodings for Nordic and Baltic languages.
• Device manufacturers (printers, terminals, embedded systems) requiring deterministic single‑byte encodings.
• Data archivists and migration specialists converting legacy documents to Unicode/UTF‑8.
• Vendors of office and business applications that must support region‑specific character needs in constrained environments.

Practical uses:

• Legacy data interchange, storage and display where 8‑bit single‑byte encodings are required.
• Interfacing with systems that expect ISO 8859‑10 encoded text prior to conversion to Unicode.

Related standards

• ISO/IEC 2022 (code structure and extension techniques)
• ISO/IEC 4873 (8‑bit code structure; levels 1–3)
• ISO/IEC 10646 / Unicode (character identifiers and mappings)
• ISO/IEC 10367 (equivalent coded character sets for code extension)
• ISO/IEC 6429 (control functions)

This standard remains relevant for maintaining and migrating legacy encodings and for understanding historical single‑byte character set usage in Nordic and Baltic language computing.