h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Once upon a time, I altered a setting in notepad and now I can't remember which one ...
So I don't know how to undo it
I think it was a change from ANSI to Unicode but I've had a look and nothing is ringing any bells - the 'help' files are not very well named

But maybe I don't need to undo it...
The reason I might need to undo it...

I'm getting question marks instead of single quotes, double quotes and hyphens when I copy text from MS Word OR an OpenOffice 1.1.1 TextDocument and paste it into one of these h2g2 thread thingies or my webmail (Operamail)

Any ideas/suggestions?

It's the non-standard character settings of M$Word etc which are the problem. Normally Notepad is the fix! You copy and paste whatever you wrote or acquired from somewhere dodgy into Notepad which strips off all the formatting. Then you reselect the plain text from Notepad and copy and paste it into the thread post or email.

You can go into Word's "Tools" menu to turn off the "autoformat as you type" features (at least the ones causing you a problem, definitely the "replace quotes with smart quotes") but then you loose the curly quotes in any new document that you type.

Or like SEF said use Notepad to "fix" the things you type in Word, or just type in Notepad from the start if you know you are going to paste into a web browser.

Whoops - my mistake...

I omitted one key step... I _am_ pasting the text (from M$ and Open Office) into notepad , then copying _that_ and pasting it here
Yet I'm still getting ? instead of ', " and -

- Are you seeing the ? in Notepad or just after the re-copying here?
- What version of Notepad (see Help About box)?
- Check the Font setting in the rather limited Format options of Notepad. Lucida Console is a good choice for compatibility.

This is a test:

"hello" “hello” "hello" “hello”

The text in this test was copied from this thread, pasted into M$ Word, edited a bit (to answer SEF's questions), then copied and pasted into Notepad, then copied and pasted into the thread text box thingy
Posted 10 Hours Ago by SEF
This is a reply to this Posting.
Post: 5


- Are you seeing the ? in Notepad or just after the re-copying here?
No. The first time I can see the ?s is if/when I click on ?Preview Message?

- What version of Notepad (see Help About box)?
Version 5.2

- Check the Font setting in the rather limited Format options of Notepad. Lucida Console is a good choice for compatibility.
The help files in notepad suggested MS Sans Serif ? which I changed to yesterday, but this made no difference (previously the font was set to Verdana)



Subject: How do I reset the defaults in notepad
Posted 10 Hours Ago by Gnomon
This is a reply to this Posting.
Post: 6



This is a test:

"hello" ?hello? "hello" ?hello?




The text in this test was copied from M$ Word (after I had finished writing <test1&gt, hen copied and pasted into an OpenOffice TextDocument, where I am now editing this paragraph and the 'tags', then copied and pasted into Notepad, then copied and pasted into the thread text box thingy
Posted 10 Hours Ago by SEF
This is a reply to this Posting.
                Post: 5
       
 
- Are you seeing the ? in Notepad or just after the re-copying here?
No. The first time I can see the ?s is if/when I click on ?Preview Message?
 
- What version of Notepad (see Help About box)?
Version 5.2
 
- Check the Font setting in the rather limited Format options of Notepad. Lucida Console is a good choice for compatibility.
The help files in notepad suggested MS Sans Serif ? which I changed to yesterday, but this made no difference (previously the font was set to Verdana)
 
               
       
Subject: How do I reset the defaults in notepad
Posted 10 Hours Ago by Gnomon
This is a reply to this Posting.
                Post: 6
       
 
 
 
This is a test:
 
"hello" ?hello? "hello" ?hello?
 

 


I have just pasted all the above from notepad and it all looks fine

I have just clicked on Preview Message - and I can see ?s in this text box AND in the 'previewed message' (around Preview Message in my 1st answer to SEF and at Gnomon's 2nd and 4th hello)

SEF's hyphens look OK but the hyphen I typed between << MS Sans Serif >> and < has changed to a ?

You have a different version of Notepad from me. I don't have menus to set anything other than western/greek and display font. Since the discrepancy actually occurs during preview that makes it much more likely to be a browser or skin issue though.

Depending a bit on which skin you are using, the fonts in the text entry box are different from the preview and the behaviour can differ yet again on actually posting (A long time ago I found the \ characters at the ends of lines were deleted). There is more than one hyphen-like character and even more than one set of angled/curly quotes - any of which may be missing from any given font or from the list of entities defined by the dna/h2g2 page code. Your hyphen may actually have been an em-dash.

I'm in brunel, these non-standard characters copied from a codepage worked in Notepad, text entry and preview here. I suspect the dash of being translated into a hyphen already but I'll only really find out on posting and rechecking: – “ ”

When you copy the “Hello” and paste it into your input box in h2g2, is it displayed correctly in the input box? Is it only in the preview that it changes to question marks?

If so, your problem seems to be in your browser, not in Notepad. What browser and version are you using? And what h2g2 skin?

Hi Gnomon,

Q1 - Yes
Q2 - Yes - in the preview AND the input box
Q3 - Opera 7.23
Q4 - Goo with frames

________

I'm on a different machine at the moment
using Notepad ME with Opera 7.03 : no problem at all...

this is written in the h2g2 text box using M$ Internet Exploiter Version 6.0.3790.0

"double quotes"
'single quotes'
Hyphen - as per underscore key
Hyphen - from numeric keypad



everything here has been 'through' Notepad


this is written in notepad
"double quotes"
'single quotes'
The hypen - from the same key as the underscore
The hyphen - from the numeric key pad



This is written in M$ Word
“double quotes”
‘single quote’
The hyphen – from same key as underscore
The hyphen – from the numeric key pad



this is written in OpenOffice
“double quotes”
'single quote'
The hyphen – using the underscore key
The hyphen – from numeric key pad






So far, no ?s

Now I'll click on Preview Message

OK, they might have been frustratingly slow, but there are still no ?s to be seen

Looks like you were right Gnomon

Now I'll click on Post Message