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Okay, so I've been designing for a long time now and I always get the same problem. When I insert such characters as: ", ', and ; I get the same issue.... a little diamond with a question mark in it. I have never understood why I get it, maybe it is just my 2 computers it shows up on but it does it for nearly every website I have designed. Any suggestions as to why it does this? Or how to fix it without using for example "?
Hope this makes sense to you guys.
Hi Robert.II, welcome to the forums,
It sounds like it may be a character-set encoding issue. Are you using a rich text editor (eg. Word) that uses characters like "fancy curly quotes" to write your web pages? If you open the files in a plain text editor (eg. Notepad), do you see "squares"?
On my laptop which has Vista, I have been using Notepad++ and on my Mac I use Smultron. And yes I did notice those "fancy curly quotes".
//EDIT: When I opened it in Notepad it shows the fancy curly quotes still.
I am unfamilliar with Smultron or Notepad++, and it may be that the Vista version of Notepad supports "rich text" (i.e. Windows-1252 ??).
In any case, if you are seeing those quotes, they are not plain text.
There should be some kind of character-set encoding setting for your text editors, most likely in the "save as" dialog. If it says "plain text" use that. Or maybe UTF-8 without "signature".
I wanted to add that whatever character-set encoding you're using, you might be able to specify that in your web pages so the browser will use it (if it has it available). I like UTF-8 because that is one of the ones RSS uses. But the main thing to do to avoid problems is to be consistent. Whatever you decide on, use it in your text editors, your web pages and your databases - everything.
I am a big fan of UTF-8 and tend to use that for every browser as it is univeral. I have found a solution for Notepad ++, and thank you for giving me some tips to pass on to others!
Thanks,
Robert.
P.S.- Sorry I couldn't post the URL, but as the rules state.... no URLs until after 5 posts haha.
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