The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #119339   Message #2644707
Posted By: JohnInKansas
31-May-09 - 06:32 AM
Thread Name: Tech: html from a word document
Subject: RE: Tech: html from a word document
I'm not sure I can tell whether GUEST,Carmela is asking a question or just making a comment.

I do find the LITTLE FOGARTY ANTI ALLERGY COT BED QUILTED MATTRESS PROTECTOR at Amazon.

In the post here, I see:

?anti allergic effects of antihistamines,?

with ? where I would expect something else.

This could be the result of the "Regionalization" of computers, and especially of Microsoft products. A person in Liberia most likely will have a computer, keyboard, and programs, specific to their locale, and some character glyphs (the "picture that is shown on the viewing screen" when a specific key is hit) may be associated with a different "character number" than is used elsewhere.

The intention might have been to enclose the text in "single-quotes" to be:

'anti allergic effects of antihistamines,' ...

In this case, in Word and other word processors, it usually is possible to use "curly quotes," rather than the simpler straight ones. (Microsoft Word calls them "smart quotes.")

HTML recognizes only the "straight quotes" in coding, so curly/smart quotes need to be turned off when posting, especially if you are composing in a word processor that can use them and then copying to a post. In Word, this setting is usually in the "Autocorrect as you type" preferences (Tools menu in older Word versions, I believe. In Word 2007 you click the cow-splat, then select "Word Options" down at the bottom, and at "Proofing" click the "Autocorrect Options" button.)

Some HTML "readers" - i.e. browsers and web sites - can recognize curly double-quotes and replace them with straight quotes to avoid "breaking up the code" in a post; but even those that handle the double-quotes may fail to make the same kind of conversion for curly single-quotes, in which case usually an "unknown character" glyph appears.

One may "code" the curly quotes, if they actually are needed in text:

‘ typed into a post should give a Left single quote = ‘
’ typed in should give a Right single quote = ’
“ typed in should give a Left double quote = “
” typed in should give a Right double quote = ”

" typed in should give you the straight quote = "
This is the one you want to use in "html code" and it can also be entered as " ( " ) or as " ( " ).

There is no "straight single-quote" mark in standard html, and the "apostrophe" is used, coded ' ( ' ). This is what Word uses with smart quotes turned off.

(The curly quotes above may not display on all browsers, depending on whether the default font selected contains them.)

It's also possible that a "regionalized" computer/program/keyboard uses a different character number for the character. When this is done, the character number often is one "unassigned" in the Unicode standard, and the same kind of "unknown character" symbol will be displayed by the readers' browsers.

To some extent, with Microsoft products at least, many of the "regionalized" differences can be overcome by selecting a different language in the programs and/or in the Operating System; but there are limitations on how completely the "regional artifacts" can be removed. Sometimes improved results are obtained by adding a language but for some combinations the "new" one needs to be set as the default languge.

John