Re: Word to HTML -- Important Gotcha!

[boldt@xxxxxxxxxx]

One more thing to be aware of when using MS-Word to write your
web pages:  Normally, web pages written in English use the ISO
8859-1 (Latin-1) character set.  But Microsoft has defined a
non-standard extension to it (surprise, surprise!).  This
extension includes certain punctuation characters, which display
as question marks or blobs when viewed using non-MS browsers.

Some consider these question marks in HTML documents as quaint,
others view them as amateurish.

But, if you think it's harmless, think again.  There are legal
considerations.  For example, one of those extended characters
is the TM symbol.  That symbol won't show up for a large number
of visitors to your web page, which will make your lawyers
unhappy.

If you absolutely must use MS tools, you need to be aware of
the situation and how to fix it.  There's a tool called the
"demoroniser" available at:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/webtools/demoroniser/

(Here's a good quote from that web site: 'Rule of thumb--every
time Microsoft use the word "smart," be on the lookout for
something dumb.')

Cheers!  Hans

Hans Boldt, ILE RPG Development, IBM Toronto Lab, boldt@ca.ibm.com


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