MySQL command line client - Unicode . This item invokes the mysql  client with properties set to communicate through the console to the MySQL server using Unicode. 

To take advantage of this support manually, run mysql  within a console that uses a compatible Unicode font and set the default character set to a Unicode character set that is supported for communication with the server: 

1. Open a console window. 

2. Go to the console window properties, select the font tab, and choose Lucida Console or some other compatible Unicode font. This is necessary because console windows start by default using a DOS raster font that is inadequate for Unicode. 

3. Execute mysql.exe  with the --default-character-set=utf8  (or utf8mb4 ) option. This option is necessary because utf16le  is one of the character sets that cannot be used as the client character set. See Impermissible Client Character Sets. 

With those changes, mysql  uses the Windows APIs to communicate with the console using UTF-16LE, and communicate with the server using UTF-8. (The menu item mentioned previously sets the font and character set as just described.) 

To avoid those steps each time you run mysql , you can create a shortcut that invokes mysql.exe . The shortcut should set the console font to Lucida Console or some other compatible Unicode font, and pass the --default-character-set=utf8  (or utf8mb4 ) option to mysql.exe . 

Alternatively, create a shortcut that only sets the console font, and set the character set in the [mysql] group of your my.ini  file: 

## Displaying Query Results Vertically 

[mysql] default-character-set=utf8 

Some query results are much more readable when displayed vertically, instead of in the usual horizontal table format. Queries can be displayed vertically by terminating the query with \G instead of a semicolon. For example, longer text values that include newlines often are much easier to read with vertical output: 

## Using Safe-Updates Mode (--safe-updates) 

mysql> SELECT * FROM mails WHERE LENGTH(txt) < 300 LIMIT 300,1\G *************************** 1. row *************************** msg_nro: 3068 date: 2000-03-01 23:29:50 time_zone: +0200 mail_from: Jones reply: jones@example.com mail_to: "John Smith" <smith@example.com> sbj: UTF-8 txt: >>>>> "John" == John Smith writes: John> Hi. I think this is a good idea. Is anyone familiar John> with UTF-8 or Unicode? Otherwise, I’ll put this on my John> TODO list and see what happens. Yes, please do that. Regards, Jones file: inbox-jani-1 hash: 190402944 1 row in set (0.09 sec) 

