Character set

HTML & CSS
1

Nice and simple - what character set do you use and why?

2

UTF-8, because it is a widely accepted standard encoding for the web and supports all the characters I am likely to ever use.

2 Likes
3

Thanks Sam. Would that also work with some of the latin characters? The ones with accents above some of the letters?

4

Indeed it would. See here for a complete list of utf-8 characters. There are probably better lists - this was the first one I found.

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5

Yes, all those and more, Greek, Cryllic, Hebrew etc…
Here is a reference list I just found:-
http://www.fileformat.info/info/charset/UTF-8/list.htm

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6

Thanks Sam and Gandalf, great help here as normal. I remember a few years ago, I did try UTF-8 and still some letters with accents came out when read on the website as gobbleygook! Are there any other changes to be made anywhere else to ensure characters are being read as they’re meant to be read?

7

If that happened, the chances are you set the meta tag to utf-8, but saves the file with some other encoding. Always remember to save the file with correct encoding.

2 Likes
8

Still getting the problem, even though the page is set to UTF-8

For example, inputting the below text:

MarĂ­a AsunciĂłn Square

makes the attached appear.

9

One thing, I always copy text into Notepad++ first, then copy from there to Frontpage, then upload via Filezilla. Frontpage is set to UTF-8 but in Notepad++ there’s UTF-8 without BOM and UTF-8 - Which one do you go for please?

10

You want to not have the BOM
There is no need of any little-endian big-endian stuff to be included.
Believe me the “invisible” BOM has caused hard to track down problems for many

Surely you don’t mean the Microsoft FrontPage that ended a decade ago?

2 Likes
11

Thanks, I’ll bear that in mind.

Still getting the problem, even though the page is set to UTF-8

For example, inputting the below text:

MarĂ­a AsunciĂłn Square

makes the attached appear:

12

In what device does that text appear?

Did you create a new document using NotePad++ without the BOM and then copy and paste the contents of the old document into the new (and trash the old document with the BOM)?

13

Thanks Ron, I’ll try it and come back and let you know.

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