Enchanting

Enchantments are spells you cast on a tool, weapon or armor piece to give it special features. To enchant something, you will need an Enchantment Table and the required level for the enchantment. The enchantments are written in the Standard Galactic Alphabet which is a simple alphabet substitution code used in the Commander Keen series of computer games (see that page for the code key). However if you want to decode the names more quickly you can replace the 'alternate.png' in .minecraft\bin\minecraft.jar\font with the 'default.png'

When viewing the inventory of the player in an NBT editor, all enchantmented items have the same serialized enchantment values. Modifying these values seems to have no effect on the in-game elements. Additionally, replacing the same item in the enchanting square seems to generate a fresh set of random enchantments. It is not known if the names have any effect on the cost of the item, but as all enchantments share the same data values it is very likely that the enchantment generation system in the 1.9 prerelease 3 is simply a placeholder.

Trivia

 * Items that are enchanted will receive a glowing aura around them. Editing 'glint.png' in .minecraft\bin\minecraft.jar\misc can change the glow accordingly.
 * Repairing an enchanted item using another item will remove the enchantment it has.