Computer Quirk! Agony! Geeks please advise.

[shereads]

A few weeks ago I noticed a strange and disturbing change in the way text shows up on the internet. Quotation marks, hypens, dashes and other commonly used puntuation marks (excepting commas and periods) now show up as symbols like these:

– instead of a dash

” instead of a quotation mark

I first noticed it when reading Literotica, but have since noticed that symbols are altered this way on other websites, even in shopping carts where I'm asked to select for pounds or dollars. I have no idea how I caused this to come about. I rarely mess with Explorer Preferences other than to clear cookies, but I'm an insomniac and who knows what I might have done?



I use Explorer 5.2 for Mac. My operating system is OS X 10.2.1.

Help!? Or more aptly, Help¤°

 

[R. Richard]

I do not use the Mac. However the problem you are describing could be caused by a change in the default font you are using for text display. Some fonts display different characters for some punctuation. I would suggest that you might try findning out what font you are using and then check with other Mac users.

If my suggestion does solve your problem, I would appreciate hearing about it as I might then be able to solve the problem for others. TIA!
R. Richard

 

[Weird Harold]

– instead of a dash

” instead of a quotation mark...

I use Explorer 5.2 for Mac. My operating system is OS X 10.2.1.

Help!? Or more aptly, Help¤°

The dash and quotation mark sowed up correctly for me.

The answer is probably to be found either in your default fonts -- although Literotica specifies Verdana TT font which displays the characters properly -- or in the advanced section of Tools -> Internet Options in the HTTP setting.

It could be a corruption in the most commonly used font files but it's more likely an IE setting of some sort.

If your version of IE 5.2 has the accessibility tab, ther eis a setting there that can override a webpage's font selections and force your browser to always use a specific font -- that might be where your settings are corrupted.

 

[snooper]

Under "View" there will be an option called "Encoding" or "Character Encoding" and somehow (!) that has been changed. Try a different setting, such asUS-ASCII or ISO-8859-1.

 

[OldnotDead]

Sher,

I'm using Explorer under OS 9 and your characters showed up correctly. I'll look at your posting on my OS X machine later and see if there is any difference. I would agree that you may have altered your preferences and switched to a font that isn't complete for some reason.

It won't necessarily correct your problem, but I think the latest version of 10.2 is 10.2.8 and you should download that update and get it installed.

I have also found that Safari, which is Apple's browser for OS X works very smoothly and has fewer conflicts than Explorer. Add it to your dock and try it, I think you will like it. (It's probably already installed in the Applications Folder)

 

[shereads]

Under "View" there will be an option called "Encoding" or "Character Encoding" and somehow (!) that has been changed. Try a different setting, such asUS-ASCII or ISO-8859-1.

Nothing under "View" called Encoding, but I did find "Character Set" which was set at "Western (Mac)." I changed it to "Western (Latin1)" and it looks as if it might be solving the problem. As with cars and mechanics, solving this problem probably leads to another problem. But hey, one triumph at a time, okay?

I blame my ill-advised foray into the world of new software. (Aladdin "Spring Cleaning.") The puncuation wierdness began at around the same time I installed the software, tried using it and found out I didn't have a clue what ought to be deleted and what was essential.

Thank you all, sexy computer geeks, for your help.



Would one of you mind typing a reply that's inside quote marks, contains a dash, and has a few aphostrophes?

 

[shereads]

Sher,

I'm using Explorer under OS 9 and your characters showed up correctly. I'll look at your posting on my OS X machine later and see if there is any difference. I would agree that you may have altered your preferences and switched to a font that isn't complete for some reason.

It won't necessarily correct your problem, but I think the latest version of 10.2 is 10.2.8 and you should download that update and get it installed.

I have also found that Safari, which is Apple's browser for OS X works very smoothly and has fewer conflicts than Explorer. Add it to your dock and try it, I think you will like it. (It's probably already installed in the Applications Folder)

Too many choices.



One of my favorite sites issued a warning of problems limited to users of Safari, so I hadn't tried it.

I'm so technophobic that I find myself tempted to upgrade from the 12" ibook to the 14" just so I can start over.



When I screw up the default settings in the 14" ibook, there's always the 17" PowerBook...It's a business deduction. And a medical deduction, too, if you consider what this tiny screen is doing to my eyes.

Yeah. New ibook. That's the ticket.

 

[snooper]

... Would one of you mind typing a reply that's inside quote marks, contains a dash, and has a few aphostrophes?

Dash it all -
“Quotes”
‘Single quotes’
"Straight quotes
'Straight single quote
Is that enough ? (QM)
I hope so ! (Exclamation)

 

[shereads]

Dash it all -
“Quotes”
‘Single quotes’
"Straight quotes
'Straight single quote
Is that enough ? (QM)
I hope so ! (Exclamation)

Curiouser and curiouser.

The dash works. The straight quotes and straight single quote work. The QM works. The exclam works.

But for "Quotes" I get dotted i's.
And for 'Single quotes' I get an e in front and dotted i at the end.

Snoop, confess: You're part of a conspiracy to make me buy a new ibook so I can start over with fresh default fonts and character sets.

 

[Weird Harold]

Curiouser and curiouser.

The dash works. The straight quotes and straight single quote work. The QM works. The exclam works.

But for "Quotes" I get dotted i's.
And for 'Single quotes' I get an e in front and dotted i at the end.

Not "curious" at all. Straight quotes, question marks and exclamtion points are part of the ASCII definitions that have been around since before computers were invented.

The smart quotes and "Em-dash" are NOT part of that standard character set and each browser, Font, and word processer are free to define those values as any character they choose.

Somewhere in your settings is an option to set the expanded character set definitions -- probably for your whole system and not just the setting for the browser.

How do these characters show up on your system?

&#8216

&#8217

&#8220

&#8221

&#8230

Those are some of the special character codes for smart quotes and a single character ellipsis in direct decimal values form.

 

[shereads]

Not "curious" at all. Straight quotes, question marks and exclamtion points are part of the ASCII definitions that have been around since before computers were invented.

The smart quotes and "Em-dash" are NOT part of that standard character set and each browser, Font, and word processer are free to define those values as any character they choose.

Somewhere in your settings is an option to set the expanded character set definitions -- probably for your whole system and not just the setting for the browser.

How do these characters show up on your system?

&#8216

&#8217

&#8220

&#8221

&#8230

Those are some of the special character codes for smart quotes and a single character ellipsis in direct decimal values form.

WHOA! How COOL is that? (I use this thing as a typewriter, okay? It's decimal values thingies, direct and other, continue to amaze me.)

Here's what happens: I read your post, and I see the characters as the characters, right down to the single ellipsis.

I click "Reply," and I get code.

This is just too strange. Thank God I didn't major in quantum physics, huh? That wasn't likely to work out. Also, how do they know when they've accellerated a particle?

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

... how do they know when they've accellerated a particle?

They have this really big

MICROPHONE

And they listen untill they hear it shout:

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

 

[Weird Harold]

WHOA! How COOL is that? (I use this thing as a typewriter, okay? It's decimal values thingies, direct and other, continue to amaze me.)

This is just too strange. Thank God I didn't major in quantum physics, huh? That wasn't likely to work out. Also, how do they know when they've accellerated a particle?

Understanding how computers handle text isn't aything close to quantum physics -- I've never actually met anyone who was as stupid as a computer; although I have known a few pets that come close. Computers only "know" two things -- on and off -- everything else that computers do depends on the sequence of on and off that they receives.

Computers see text as numbers that index a particular set of numbers that are an index to a particular character image in a font definition -- which in turn is just another set of numbers to your computer that form a pattern of light and dark spots on your screen when sent to the video memory.

That's the most basic explanation of your problem -- your computer isn't using the same list of character images that the page is sending.

You need to get them using the same definitions most of the time -- you'll never, ever, get every page on the web to display properly, but you can get most of them to look the way they were intended to look.

 

[snooper]

They have this really big

MICROPHONE

And they listen untill they hear it shout:

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Stop misleading the poor inquirer. As anyone will tell you that isn't true.

They know it's going fast enough when a speed cop latches on and tries to flag it down.