Oracle linked table : display Unicode chars in datasheet

[alcan]

Hi all

I have a table in an Oracle database with UTF-8 (Unicode) characters.
And I have created a 'linked table' in Access 2007 (on XP)

But any non-ascii characters, such as Japanese show in datasheets as inverted question marks : ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿

How can I get them to display correctly? I tried changing the font to Arial Unicode MS but it makes no difference.

My ODBC driver is the Oracle supplied one. And yet, using Excel and Microsoft Query, connecting via the same DSN, I can display the same data in a Excel spreadsheet and it looks like it's supposed to : 日本語能力試験

I've tried searching for a solution but it has led me nowhere. Anyone got any ideas?

 

[alcan]

solved

Well as so often happens, I solve my own problem soon after posting the question. The crucial information I was lacking is:

You have to set the environment variables NLS_NCHAR=AL32UTF8 and NLS_LANG=AMERICAN_AMERICA.AL32UTF8 (or any other language setting ending with ".AL32UTF8'')

On Windows, using the Oracle ODBC Driver you have to enable the "Force SQL_WCHAR support" Workaround in the data source configuration to make Oracle return Unicode to a non-Unicode application. Alternatively, you can include "FWC=T" in your connect string.

Hope this is useful to the next person who has the same problem.