---
title: characterEncoding
framework: foundation
role: symbol
role_heading: Type Property
path: foundation/nsattributedstring/documentattributekey/characterencoding
---

# characterEncoding

The string encoding for the document.

## Declaration

```swift
static let characterEncoding: NSAttributedString.DocumentAttributeKey
```

## Discussion

Discussion The value of this attribute is an NSNumber object containing integer specifying NSStringEncoding for the file; default for plain text is the default encoding. This key in options can specify the string encoding for reading the data. Upon return, the document attributes can contain the actual encoding used. For writing methods, this value is used for generating the plain text data. The string constant in macOS 10.3 and earlier is @"CharacterEncoding".

## See Also

### Getting document metadata keys

- [author](foundation/nsattributedstring/documentattributekey/author.md)
- [category](foundation/nsattributedstring/documentattributekey/category.md)
- [cocoaVersionDocumentAttribute](foundation/nsattributedstring/documentattributekey/cocoaversiondocumentattribute.md)
- [comment](foundation/nsattributedstring/documentattributekey/comment.md)
- [company](foundation/nsattributedstring/documentattributekey/company.md)
- [converted](foundation/nsattributedstring/documentattributekey/converted.md)
- [copyright](foundation/nsattributedstring/documentattributekey/copyright.md)
- [creationTime](foundation/nsattributedstring/documentattributekey/creationtime.md)
- [editor](foundation/nsattributedstring/documentattributekey/editor.md)
- [keywords](foundation/nsattributedstring/documentattributekey/keywords.md)
- [manager](foundation/nsattributedstring/documentattributekey/manager.md)
- [modificationTime](foundation/nsattributedstring/documentattributekey/modificationtime.md)
- [readOnly](foundation/nsattributedstring/documentattributekey/readonly.md)
- [subject](foundation/nsattributedstring/documentattributekey/subject.md)
- [title](foundation/nsattributedstring/documentattributekey/title.md)