.HZ File Extension
Chinese (Hanzi) Text
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What is an HZ file?
An HZ file is a text file that contains Chinese (Hanzi) characters encoded in ASCII text. Users commonly employ HZ files to store and exchange Chinese text through systems that support only ASCII characters. While HZ encoding was once an effective way to represent Chinese text on limited systems, its use has declined significantly with the widespread adoption of Unicode.
More Information
HZ files typically originate from Chinese-language software, communication systems, or archived text collections. They encode Chinese characters using an escape-coding mechanism that converts Hanzi into ASCII-compatible sequences, allowing the text to pass through systems that cannot directly process Chinese character sets. This approach helped improve compatibility when many computers and networks lacked native support for Chinese text.
Though HZ files were once more common in Chinese computing, they have largely been replaced by Unicode encodings such as UTF-8 and UTF-16. Unicode provides comprehensive support for Chinese and many other writing systems, making it the standard text encoding used by modern operating systems, applications, and websites. As a result, HZ files are now primarily encountered in legacy systems, archived documents, and older text collections.
How to open an HZ file
You can open .HZ files with any text editor that supports plain text encoding. Popular text editors include Microsoft Notepad on Windows, Apple TextEdit on macOS, and gedit on Linux. For proper display of the Chinese (Hanzi) characters, ensure the text editor is configured to use the appropriate character encoding, such as HZ-GB-2312.
HXWZ and TwinBridge Chinese Partner can also open and display the contents of HZ files.