{Taming \UTF-8 in pdf\TeX} {Frank Mittelbach} {To understand the concepts in \code{pdflatex} for processing \UTF-8 encoded files it is helpful to understand the models used by the \TeX\ engine and earlier models used by \LaTeX\ on top of \TeX. This talk gives a short historical review of that area and explains \parindent=18.334pt \item{---}how it is possible in a \TeX\ system that only understands 8-bit input to nevertheless interpret and process \UTF-8 files successfully; \item{---}what the obstacles are that can be and have been overcome; \item{---}what restrictions remain if one doesn't switch to a Unicode-aware engine such as Lua\TeX\ or \XeTeX. \noindent The talk will finish with an overview about the improvements with respect to \UTF-8 that will be activated in \LaTeX\ within 2019 and how they can already be tested right now. }