Salinye Posted April 9, 2003 Report Posted April 9, 2003 I've noticed in some of your posts on this board that your apostraphe's and quotation marks are turned into little squares. I too had this problem and thought I would share with you the solution. I was enlightened by a friend that it's caused from writing in word and the fonts aren't recognized here, so the cute squiggles that say "times new Roman" uses turn into squares here. The font the EZ boards use is Verdana. If you simply change the font to Verdana before copying and pasting it to the boards it will correct that problem. :0) Just sharing the knowledge....(one man's garbage is another man's treasure or something of the sort.) ~Salinye
Peredhil Posted April 9, 2003 Report Posted April 9, 2003 Wonderful! Thank you for solving that mystery.
Salinye Posted April 10, 2003 Author Report Posted April 10, 2003 UHG This is so frustrating to me. I write EVERYTHING in word, even things that are straight off the cuff, like the rap thread. (Not cheating, I still write it straight off the cuff without much thought like we're supposed to.) However, the reason I write everything in word first is because many many many times in the past I've lost posts due to computer or internet errors before I could get the information saved. So this is my solution to avoiding that. I thought if it were typed in Verdana it wouldn't copy funky, but I see it is only from MY computer that it looks normal. Going to another computer my posts are all munched. /sigh Anyone know a solution to this? Is there a font in word that transfers over smoothly? In the meantime I'm off to edit... *sighs frustrated* ~Salinye
Yui-chan Posted April 10, 2003 Report Posted April 10, 2003 I noticed your posts were a little garbled, actually, but to tell the truth the whole thing confuses me greatly. I wouldn't have thought that it mattered in the least what font you were writing in. When you copy and paste into the forum submission window, it all translates into plaintext anyway. Or so I thought... I'd suggest that you take a look at your pasted text in the forum entry box before you submit it. Is the garbling taking place when you copy and paste or when you submit the information to the forum? If it's in your copy-and-paste step, maybe take a look at what language settings your Word is using? Also, there are language setting here in your 'My Controls' area, so you may want to look at how those are set. (Although I don't think it's all that likely that they affect anything more than the forum display.) I doubt that it's your font, but I'd stick with Times New Roman or Arial as those are pretty much universal. Verdana is a little less so, so I guess it couldn't hurt to try switching... Still, I lean towards thinking it'd be something to do with your Word settings. Have you tried copy/pasting text from some other program? Notepad? Wordpad? Does it still do the same thing? Just some thoughts... maybe someone will come by who actually knows, but at least these might lead us in the right direction? Puzzled, ~Yui
Quincunx Posted April 10, 2003 Report Posted April 10, 2003 Trying typing this in Word 97, in Courier New Apostrophes' are easy to please, Quotations say "oh nonono". . . Punctuation quite demanding Never leaving the same selves standing. Drat. This font also has a symbol for quotation-marks distinct from the symbol for apostrophes.
Yui-chan Posted April 10, 2003 Report Posted April 10, 2003 Salinye, Tzimfemme reminded me of another thought.... the trouble seems to be mainly with quotation marks and apostrophes, so try turning off the "smart quotes" option in your AutoCorrect settings. (In my version, it's Tools --> AutoCorrect --> AutoFormat as You Type tab --> under Replace as you type:, uncheck "Straight quotes" with "smart quotes".) I've noticed in the past that sometimes Word transforms characters into symbols, such as the 'smart quotes'. Another one that I run into often is the strange triple-dot symbol that it uses to replace '...' anywhere you put it. It looks identical in Word, but doesn't translate to 100% of computers. As a test, you may want to just go through your AutoCorrect settings and turn off anything that isn't directly correcting spelling errors. See if that helps. And Tzim-sama, thanks for spurring my sluggish brain into motion. Again, ~Yui
Salinye Posted April 10, 2003 Author Report Posted April 10, 2003 Thanks, I'll for sure try that, however... Now I'm thinking it has something to do with my computer settings and not Word, because suddenly I'm seeing those little squares all over the place. Even in posts I've had up for over a year, suddenly don't look right. RAWWWRRRRR... Any more suggestions with this new info?? Feeling computerly challenged, ~Salinye
Quincunx Posted April 11, 2003 Report Posted April 11, 2003 A flash of insight! Somehow the browsers are preserving knowledge of what font the message was originally written in (and the assorted Mysterious HTML Formatting Doohickeys), if not the one provided by EZboard; if our computer knows the font, it displays properly--if not, it doesn't. Salinye's copy-pastes in Times New Roman look fine to me but the Verdana do not--guess which font I have installed?
Yui-chan Posted April 11, 2003 Report Posted April 11, 2003 It's a theory worth looking into, but I'm still muddled. After all, I see the strange character translations in Salinye's posts, but I do have Verdana installed on my computer. Truth to tell, I'm almost stumped. I'll have to give it some thoughts. Hey, Salinye... have you looked at your Windows and keyboard language settings? Just grasping at straws.... ~Yui
Salinye Posted April 11, 2003 Author Report Posted April 11, 2003 Ever since I realized that Verdana was not a solution I went back to using Times New Roman or whatever it's called. I had this problem before I ever used Verdana. The odd thing is I've been posting stories on EZ boards for years, and never had this problem until recently. Is it a problem with the EZ board upgrades, or with my computer, I'm thinking it's my computer. I'll try the things you suggest, keep the ideas a spinnin'! ~Sali
Gwaihir Posted April 11, 2003 Report Posted April 11, 2003 Neither this forum nor Legion's forum runs on Ezboard. Have you been using this sort of board (dunno the name) for years too?
Salinye Posted April 11, 2003 Author Report Posted April 11, 2003 No, I haven't, but suddenly those symbols are showing up in old posts that I've had on boards for years, and they were never there before. *sigh* All my hugs and kisses and homemade cookies sent to whoever solves this problem for me!!!! ~Sali Cursed by the Gods of Apostrophes and Quotation marks (A God of no Mercy)
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