Why does Word change characters when sending in HTML

[WDTL]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I do a monthly newsletter - it looks fabulous in Word and yet - when I send it off - it changes the various symbols & characters into something else, i.e. quote marks in the place of apostrophes. I use either Helvetica, Verdana or Arial - and it still does it...very puzzling and frustrating because it makes me look unprofessional.

 

[CyberTaz]

Most likely the cause is the fact that you're "sending it off" as either an
attachment to email as a Word document or as HTML content in an email - both
of which leave it at the mercy of the recipient's configuration. If you want
the newsletter to arrive as the "fabulous" creation you designed generate a
PDF using the Save As dialog or the facility in Preview.app [or some other
PDF generator] & send the PDF. It will be letter perfect for each recipient.

Another Note: HTML email is spurned by many experienced users because it is
so widely used by spammers & other undesirables. It automatically gets marked
as Junk Mail or in some cases goes directly into the trash. If your
newsletter is newsworthy I'd further suggest that you revert to Plain Text
email & attach to that.
save the HTML with its fancy formatting, emoticons & other cutesy niceties
for messages to Mom & your sweetheart

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
MVP Office:Mac

 

[John McGhie]

I would follow Bob's answer if I were you: it's much simpler!

The simplistic answer to your question is "Because you have not specified
your Character Set in your HTML".

When you save the document as a Web Page, set the Web Options: specifically,
set the "Encoding" to "Unicode (UTF-8)" and you should get no further
surprises.

Word's default encoding is "Western European (Macintosh)" which is a bit
dumb ‹ it does cause character transposition on other kinds of computers.

Please note: if you are looking at the result in an email program, it won't
look so good because email programs can't display the full range of XML that
Word uses. Modern browsers can.

Hope this helps

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I do a monthly newsletter - it looks fabulous in Word and yet - when I send it
off - it changes the various symbols & characters into something else, i.e.
quote marks in the place of apostrophes. I use either Helvetica, Verdana or
Arial - and it still does it...very puzzling and frustrating because it makes
me look unprofessional.

--
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Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]