UTF-16 Code Point is a 16-bit integer i.e. two bytes. On different computer platform, these two bytes may be stored in different order. The byte orders are called "Little Endian" and "Big Endian".
Little Endian
Little Endian means that the low-order byte of the number is stored in memory at the lowest address. For example, the number 3178h is stored as 78 31. x86 Processor and Microsoft Windows are Little Endian System
Big-Endian
Big-Endian is the opposite of Little-Endian system. For example, the number 4653h is simply stored as 46 53. PowerPC Processor and Mac OS are Big-Endian System.
About UTF-16
In UTF-16 standard, both Little-Endian and Big-Endian system are allowed. A special label called Byte-Order Mark (BOM) are added at the beginning of byte-stream or Text File to identify whether the string is Little-Endian or Big-Endian. Windows Native format is Little-Endian. But Macintosh Native format is Big-Endian. A well-constructed application should be able to handle both formats. But it is recommend that you use the native format of your computer.
UTF-16 and HTML
According to HTML standard, HTML files should be transmitted in Big-Endian format and using Byte-Order Mark (BOM) is recommended. Since Windows Native format is Little-Endian, to avoid the Endian conversion problem, it is recommended to use UTF-8 encoding on HTML files.
Summary
If the converted file is used on Windows system, please select Unicode as output format. If the converted file is used on Macintosh or other Big-Endian system, please select Unicode Big-Endian as output format.
