The document provides an overview of character encoding, focusing particularly on Unicode as a solution to the limitations of pre-Unicode encoding systems. It explains the importance of character encoding in enabling computers to represent text using binary values, along with a detailed description of various encoding formats such as UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32. Additionally, it introduces the concept of Byte Order Mark (BOM) for establishing text file endianness and highlights the broad applicability of Unicode in modern software and operating systems.