Explanation:

When I paste glyphs outside the ANSI range from Word into the Reply to Thread Box, Check the Preview Box, and click Submit Message, the glyphs generally appear in the preview window as they were in Word, and as they looked when I pasted them.

In the Reply to Thread box, though, the pasted glyphs have been transformed into decimal & code. The ones I coded in & hex code remain as I typed them.

The transformation to code appears to work only for character numbers below where the Unicode charts "go seriously oriental" but I see no real reason to provide for those characters, at least at this time.

The range of characters that appear (today) to be "always" correctly converted to decimal Unicode char values seems to encompass all of the "languages" likely to appear here. Locally regionalized keyboards may "print symbols" for some language specific chars, and people typing in a language for which their keyboard lacks a "foreign char" that they want may not know the correct code. Those are both "typos" that require no modification of the 'cat. If you misspell a werd it's gonna post misspelled, even if what you type (accidentally?) is 癦.instead of €

This conversion is, so far as I've noticed, a relatively new feature at the 'cat, and may have been "intermittent" while the details are being worked out. - Or maybe it's been here forever and I just didn't notice it.

The ONLY broken characters I see in posts here with any consistency are "curlies" that the posting person's computer pastes as "symbols" from a "pseudo-font" that has no direct conversion to Unicode characters. Those do not particularly affect the intelligibility of what's posted, any more than the occasional typo. Their only use is to give all the Windows users instant recognition of the one regular who uses a Mac sloppily - and probably the reverse for intelligent enough Mac users (if that's not an oxymoron?).

I don't see broken chars that uniquely identify 'nix posters, but it's not been a sufficient concern for me to look for them.

The "Practice Threads" elicit some wailing about things that don't work as expected. These are 90% user error and 100% things there's no useful reason to post. For those who can use the escapes (and tags) correctly, they may be cute, and they're not particularly harmful; but it's no real problem if the don't post as intended since the "cutes" have no essential use in conversation.

John