Find a Table of Special Characters

baumgrenze · 13 Aug 2017

Once a week I gather a document from a web page in which it appears that the author/creator uses text composition program and/or operating system in which unorthodox characters stand for special text characters. The 'stand in' characters are visible on the web page.

I have worked out that Ö = … or ellipsis and ñ = 'en dash.' I've tried asking the author and the web master and given up. Does this look familiar to anyone? I've tried several times to construct a Google search but I get all 'false hits.' I'd like a web page that describes the system that generates these characters so that I know what other special characters I might encounter, a stand-in for an 'em dash' for example.

If this is 'way off topic' I'd appreciate someone pointing me to a more appropriate place to ask. For years I used the WOPR forum started by Woody Leonard, but that is now 'subscription only.'

thanks
baumgrenze

Megahertz07 · 13 Aug 2017

To use ASCII characters, pres left ALT + number on numeric pad.

237 =φ

baumgrenze · 14 Aug 2017

Thank you, Megaherz, but this is not quite what I'm seeking.

The author uses some word processor/operating system (perhaps Apple?) in which Ö will print as an ellipsis (....) and ñ prints as a 'short or en dash (as wide as the letter 'n') The problem is that the author creates a document and then 'converts' it to HTML in a way that results in a document containing the "Ö" where an ellipsis is intended, etc.

I'm seeking a descriptive table for all of the 'substitute characters' used by the 'word processor/operating system.' My guess is that it is something 'early' in the development of word processing that somehow has managed to 'survive' to this day. I appreciate that this is an 'arcane' question. I asked on sevenforums because of the depth of experience of the community.

thanks,
baumgrenze

Barman58 · 14 Aug 2017

Ok I have some assistance for your issue but it's nowhere near a one click solution ... (ellipsis intentional

)

as you mentioned the conversion to HTML from Word processor I started to think of the major change that occurred recently when the standard character encoding for HTML changed from ASCII to (finally), Unicode UTF-8, ( via ANSI & ISO-8859-1)

As there are a lot of versions that have been used there are a lot of chances for conversions to cause the issues that you are seeing ... the first 128 characters are basically the same but as soon as you get higher the code to character conversion may vary. Also there are a few versions of HTML character sets that have been used so it could be at your end if you are using a particular HTML Version and the generator uses an earlier one

More information and links to the various Character encoding Sets are available from the W3 HTML Character Sets

There is also the possibility that ASCI and ANSI conversions are the root cause as various "Special" character sets were "Invented" to provide characters for early Word Processors to allow the use of characters outside the basic ASCII limit of 128, you would need to know the actual software used to create the documents to develop some form of code translation system

baumgrenze · 14 Aug 2017

Thank you, Nigel.

What you wrote helps me to better understand what is going on. I will have another go at writing to the webmaster of the website where the problem occurs. I will share your observations.

You rock!
baumgrenze

mrjimphelps · 14 Aug 2017

baumgrenze said:

Once a week I gather a document from a web page in which it appears that the author/creator uses text composition program and/or operating system in which unorthodox characters stand for special text characters. The 'stand in' characters are visible on the web page.

I have worked out that Ö = … or ellipsis and ñ = 'en dash.' I've tried asking the author and the web master and given up. Does this look familiar to anyone? I've tried several times to construct a Google search but I get all 'false hits.' I'd like a web page that describes the system that generates these characters so that I know what other special characters I might encounter, a stand-in for an 'em dash' for example.

If this is 'way off topic' I'd appreciate someone pointing me to a more appropriate place to ask. For years I used the WOPR forum started by Woody Leonard, but that is now 'subscription only.'

thanks
baumgrenze

In Windows, you can run Character Map (type 'charmap'). Character Map is a huge table of the entire symbol set available in Windows.

Seven Forums is an excellent place to ask the sort of question you have asked.