Two questions

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Birmingham
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Jun 28, 2007 5:31 pm
Location: Birmingham, Alabama, USA

Two questions

Post by Birmingham »

1. When I submit using Microsoft Word files the " " become ? ? in the submitted text. Am I doing something incorrectly?

2. I live in the Central Time Zone, which is GMT -6 during Standard Time and GMT-5 during Daylight Savings Time. I entered GMT-6. Does your site automatically adjust or should I edit the time?
Dave Panchyk
Posts: 13
Joined: Tue Jun 26, 2007 6:54 am

Post by Dave Panchyk »

As for 1., you should make everything plain text first; copy and paste everything from Word into Notepad (if you haven't downloaded TextPad yet). Copy and paste from Notepad into any Web fields after saving the file as a .TXT format file within Notepad.

Honestly, I do the process in reverse, writing in TextPad then pasting it into Word to see if its spell- and grammar-checking finds anything I missed. Then I copy from TextPad into any Web form and send Word back to its cage.
writewellcfl1
Posts: 663
Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2007 2:15 pm
Location: Orlando, FL

Post by writewellcfl1 »

Dave, this is good advice. We're not really sure where the glitches in "translation" occur, but I would try following Dave's advice. Also, you will need to change the time zone manually. It doesn't seem to update automatically.
Keesa
Posts: 125
Joined: Thu Jan 25, 2007 3:09 pm

Post by Keesa »

Hi, Birmingham--and welcome!

I'm not quite sure, but it sounds to me like you have curly quotes enabled on your computer. Curly quotes cannot be read by the webforms, so the form ends up transforming them into something it can read--in this case, question marks.

Working from Notepad, as Dave suggested, is a great way to work around that (and a thousand and one other little problems) because Notepad also doesn't support curly quotes. (Nor does it auto-format ellipses or em dashes, two other "problem characters".) Alternately, type directly into the webform (not recommended for the long summary...) or disable auto-formatting in Word. (Insert >> AutoText >> AutoText. Select the Auto Format As You Type tab and uncheck all the little tickyboxes in the "Replace as you type" section (the middle section).
writewellcfl1
Posts: 663
Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2007 2:15 pm
Location: Orlando, FL

Post by writewellcfl1 »

Thanks Keesa, that's another good insight. :D
Keesa
Posts: 125
Joined: Thu Jan 25, 2007 3:09 pm

Post by Keesa »

You're welcome! :D
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