Special Character Display Issues

[Akimbo]

I have noticed that Scubaboard and other Internet Forums have had inconsistent results when displaying special characters. Many of the problems have occurred relate to text composed in word processing programs (like Microsoft Word) and pasted into Scubaboard. I believe the primary reason is that many word processing programs are configured to automatically substitute or "autocorrect" standard keyboard punctuation symbols for more advanced typographic characters.

Often these symbols will display correctly initially on most computers but will be substituted for odd characters or character sequences when forum software, operating systems, and/or browsers are upgraded. Here are some culprits that I have identified:

You can prevent your word processor from "auto-correcting" these symbols by turning the options off in the program's configuration.

While on this subject, I would like to test the following symbols.

Please advise if any of the following symbols do not display the same way they do in the image above:
° Degree Symbol
¼ 1/4 fraction
½ 1/2 fraction
¾ 3/4 fraction
² Squared symbol
³ Cubed symbol
¢ Cent (decimal US Dollar)
£ Pound sterling symbol (British currency)
€ Euro symbol (currency)
≤ Less than or equal
≥ Greater than or equal
± Plus or Minus
≠ Not Equal
÷ Division (divided by)

Here is an old thread that discusses the issue for anyone interested:
Odd characters

 

[RainPilot]

The US cent character doesn't have the line all the way through. Everything else is as advertised.

 

[Steve_C]

Not just internet forums. I get manuscripts from around the world in pdf and have seen the substitutions sometimes when I print them out. Seems dependent on which of my computers I use.

 

[Akimbo]

The US cent character doesn't have the line all the way through. Everything else is as advertised...

That's interesting. I "suspect" that it a typographic font/style issue since it showed something close rather than a weird rectangle or strange character sequence. I would personally like to use a lot of those special characters being tested but am a little reluctant. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[NYCNaiad]

Another way to prevent this problem is to copy & paste the text into a program which strips the formatting. I like using Notepad for this, but there are plenty of others as well. This method is also helpful when you're copying something from a web site, email or other program which isn't dependent upon a word processing program.

 

[Akimbo]

Another way to prevent this problem is to copy & paste the text into a program which strips the formatting. I like using Notepad for this

A plain text/ASCII editor will strip all formatting but many (most?) still support extended character sets. For example, here are the known culprit characters from above pasted into Notepad and copied and pasted into the Scubaboard reply box in the BB Code Editor Mode (not Rich Text, basically and plain text editor).

— Em Dash
– En Dash
’ Closed Single Quote
“ Open Double Quote
” Closed Double Quote
… Ellipsis

At least on my system, they all display fine for now. The problem is they can get substituted for bizarre characters or strings the next time there is an upgrade anywhere along the line. For example, these characters were changed in quite a few of my posts (and others) during the xenForo upgrade:

— for Em Dash
’ for Closed Single Quote
“ for Open Double Quote
” for Closed Double Quote
… for Ellipsis

Sometimes these same characters will be substituted for a small empty vertical rectangle, which isn't horrible, but the character strings above make it really hard to read. I would say it is safest to avoid these. The jury is still out on the ones being tested above, but I haven't noticed any weirdness on those in my older posts. The problem is I don't really know what everyone else sees.