The standard behavior so far for my maps in Japan or China was to use --latin1, and hope that all towns/cities/names if not name:en present - got transliterated decently into latin characters. However if using Unicode this is of course not happening. Could there be a command like {set name='${mkgmap:trans:name}' } That way one could build a map that is usable for people who do understand the local script/language, and who don't by setting all names e.g. name=('name:en|name:int|mkgmap:trans:name''(name in e.g. Japanese Script) ' Even better would of course be if there would be an additional function to check if "name" is already in two scripts - this is often the case for Japan or Thailand or Singapore... Dunno if that is easy to implement. I hope/guess the above /mkgmap:trans:name/ would be easy, as the code exists if you use e.g. --latin1. -- keep on biking and discovering new trails Felix openmtbmap.org & www.velomap.org