Configure Winamp to display correctly Unicode text


First, make sure you have the latest version of Winamp. Then replace the font of your Winamp skin with a unicode one. Go to Winamp > Preferences (Ctrl+P) > Playlist, and Uncheck “Use skin or language pack font”. Then select an appropriate font from the drop-down menu, eg. Arial Unicode MS.

If you use Classic skins, go to: Winamp > Prefs (Ctrl+P) > Skins > Classic Skins, and Uncheck “Use skinned font for main window title display”. If you use Modern Skins, go to: Winamp > Prefs (Ctrl+P) > Skins > Modern Skins > Font Rendering tab, and Uncheck “Use the alternate fonts if the skin defines them”. Change the TrueType Replacement font to something more suitable via the “Replace with” drop-down menu.

To display unicode fonts in the Media Library, go to: Winamp > Prefs > Media Library > Library Options tab, and Checkmark “Media Library uses same font as Playlist Editor” (Note, this assumes that you’ve already set an appropriate font for the playlist). For Reading & Writing MP3 ID3 Tags, Go to: Winamp > Prefs > Plugin > Input > in_mp3.dll > config, and Make sure the appropriate settings are selected in the Title/Tags tab – e.g.: Read ASCII tags as: System Language (not Latin-1), Write tags as: Unicode (UTF-18)

Unicode characters need to be entered into the ID3v2 tag (ID3v1 does NOT support Unicode). Though also note that many external/older mp3 cd & portable players do not support Unicode ID3v2 tags. So you may want to bear this in mind if you also plan on using your MP3’s with any such players (if the external/portable mp3 player doesn’t support Unicode ID3v2 tags, then it will just display weird jibberish/square type characters instead).