Hi John, echo "\x280d\x280e" | ./lou_translate ../tables/letterDefTest.ctb does give me \x280e\x280d but actually writing the characters as input seems not to produce the desired output. echo "⠍⠎" | ./lou_translate ../tables/letterDefTest.ctb You can enter unicode values in linux as follows: shift+ctrl+u, <hexcodeOfChar>, <space> I am not moving the goalpost, just trying to flush out the bug. Because when we write \x280d\x280e and liblouis changes them to unicode chars then everything seems to be ok, but when we get the actual data itself, then something odd is still happening. If i understood the purpose of lou_translate, then echo "⠍⠍" | ./lou_translate ../tables/letterDefTest.ctb should be the same as the call from python, which still has the reported issue. One posative way of looking at it is that we are finding and squashing several bugs :) Thanks. Mesar On Mon 16/04/12,17:31, John J. Boyer wrote: > The program now accepts Unicode characters in the form \xhhhh and shows > them in the output in the same form. Note that lines cannot be more than > 500 characters in length. > > This version may break some tests. Like any code it may also have bugs. > > John For a description of the software, to download it and links to project pages go to http://www.abilitiessoft.com