Seems to be an e-mail bug?

29 Sep 2004

I was testing summat out and sent myself an e-mail through the hidden email system of swinging heaven and for some reason its seems to have done some very strange things.
All the ' symbols that were originally typed have chnaged into Ã¢?T (accented "a" then a "?" then a "T")
Now I use win2000, and was using word and copied and pasted from word into the email window, where all looked ok, and then pressend send.
So somewhere along the way summat got changed!
Any ideas? Because I've realised that any emails I've sent that I had typed in word to spell check must have looked like a complete load of bolocks!!!!
:-(

29 Sep 2004

Jon~
A lot of the time, applications like MS-Word will convert your single- (') and double- (") quotes into "fancy quotes" that curve nicely around your text. Typographically clever, perhaps, but not very compatible with the basic HTML format commonly used in e-mail.
If you don't want to go through your message and replace the fancy quotes with plain ones after pasting your message into the e-mail window, one solution would be to temporarily save your document as "plain text" and then copy & paste the result.
HTH
~Reese! surprised

29 Sep 2004

Yeah, I was thinking that it might be because my PC uses DBCS (double byte character set 16bit) which is basically an extended version of ASCII (8bit) and it was posibly the email system on the server was striping the sets down to 8 bits
but that wouldnt count for it changing into three characters where one was entered.
The most annoying thing is that the paisted into window actually looks correct, so the web brouser can handle the funny character(s) and show them correctly so it looks fine at the time you press the send button... but by the time it gets to the other end its been mangled.
I'll try saving as a .txt file, cutting nad pasting from there, and see what happens then.

29 Sep 2004

Jon~
When the "extended characters" like that are copied into an HTML document, like an e-mail or web page, they're transformed into weird sets of characters...though I have no earthly idea why. A partner of mine in California had sent me a document to post onto our website in which he made liberal use of the degree symbol. When I pasted it from the word file into my editor and viewed the page, all of the degree marks had turned into sets of foreign characters. I had to go in manually and change all of these to the HTML code for that symbol. Indeed, nothing can be simple. confused

~Reese!

P.S. A simpler solution for you might be to go into Start/Programs/Accessories and open up NotePad for composing your e-mails (or TextEdit, if you're using a Mac). Unlike Word, it keeps everything in pure ASCII format, and you'll be able to copy & paste directly from the window.

29 Sep 2004

Quote by Reese
Jon~
When the "extended characters" like that are copied into an HTML document, like an e-mail or web page, they're transformed into weird sets of characters...though I have no earthly idea why. A partner of mine in California had sent me a document to post onto our website in which he made liberal use of the degree symbol. When I pasted it from the word file into my editor and viewed the page, all of the degree marks had turned into sets of foreign characters. I had to go in manually and change all of these to the HTML code for that symbol. Indeed, nothing can be simple.
~Reese!

Reese, perhaps you can help me... I was daft enough to try using word to edit my XML docs in rather than using a txt editor... purely so I could use the spell check and not have to manualy type all the tags. Of course when I uploaded the page I discovered word had secretly done fancy quotes and a ton of other stuff.
Now when saving as XML word limits your options a bit... but is it possible to tell it to convert to a particular charset and thereby kill off the smart quotes for normal ones.
It really is completely insane that word shoves out html and XML without giving any option to set charset or other fun stuff.
Otherwise its back to the good old programmers large txt file editor that I know and love... with the gaurentee of not screwing with files on the quiet.
Anyway just thought you might know... will now return to being all sexy and smutty.

29 Sep 2004

EnglishChris~
No idea how to limit or convert the characterset in Word, but I have been able to turn off the "smart quotes" and other automated annoyances when I've had to use it to edit code. You just go to the Formant menu, select AutoFormat from the drop-down list and click the Options button. Most of the offending options can be found under the AutoFormat As You Type tab and turned off.
~Reese! surprised

P.S. I rarely use Word except when I have to import documents and web pages created by others I work with. I prefer to do all of my coding in TextEdit on the Mac, thus eliminating the "convenience features" which tend to bugger the final result.

29 Sep 2004

Thanks Reese.. I don't like word either... it has convenience features that bugger stuff up even if you don't click save..!! What you suggested is however what I am looking for on this occasion.. as its just XML... all the PHP stuff I wouldn't dream of doing in word.
I use TSwebeditor and editpad for all that stuff... they can be safely relied on to syntax highlight without screwing up.... Frontpage is a friggin nightmare BTW.