Weird characters

Hi,

It sounds like your encoding is wrong.
When you open the file in text edit, try to change the text encoding is the open dialog.

If your text encoding language is not showing under the plain text encoding option, edit the list to include it.

Ziv

As Ziv said, the problem is most likely that you have not set TextEdit to read the file correctly. The encodings you should most likely try are Western (Mac OS Roman), Western (ISO Latin 1), and Unicode (UTF-8) and (UTF-16).

What do you mean by "send it to mysql"? What do you do?
It sounds like the encoding is changing somewhere.

Ziv

Just want to add that I believe I am having the same problem--seems as if the encoding vanishes in the process of importing a list into another program. I have tried all different varieties of encoding, and the Text edit as well as the original documents appear correct (Spanish accents and such not garbled.) Then, when I import the list into another program, they become garbled. But, like the poster of this question, I too can enter the correct text into the object program manually. I suspect, but am not sure, that this is a very recent development.

when I import the list into another program, they become garbled.

What program exactly? When you import something, you have to try to match its encoding. Or switch the encoding of whatever you are importing to what the receiving program expects.

Thanks for the quick answer. I am moving word lists into Crossword Express. The program has always required Unicode 8 (but admittedly I could not confirm this today.) I do believe I've been "matching" this correctly.

Thanks for the quick answer. I am moving word lists into Crossword Express.

To make dictionaries? Try saving your input text as Western (MacRoman).

I have tried Unicode 8,16, 32; Celtic, Mac OS Roman, Western ISO latin 1, and the EBCDIC Western Latin. I get the same results.

Do you believe that the latest Java upgrade could be at fault? I did see, (googling) some encoding problems after an earlier upgrade.

Thanks again.

I have tried Unicode 8,16, 32; Celtic, Mac OS Roman, Western ISO latin 1, and the EBCDIC Western Latin.

Could you confirm what you are trying to do exactly? Is it make a dictionary or something else? Also what language?

Do you believe that the latest Java upgrade could be at fault?

Don't know.

I am making word lists which are in both Spanish and English. I then am trying to transfer these lists into the Dictionary part of the program Crossword Express. I had to use word processors to find all the previous errors in the word lists (errors due to encoding, and garbled text)-- and I replaced the characters with the correct ones this way. Then I began the movement to Crossword Express. Because Crossword Express wants it's Mac users to use Text Edit and plain text, I pasted the revisions from the word processors (Text Wrangler and Mellel) into Text Edit, and proceeded. All goes well until I open the dictionary in Crossword Express, and find the text garbled.

(I have also written to the creator of Crossword Express, and I'll probably hear from him in a day or two.)

I am able to do what you are doing without problem. Send me your TextEdit word list and perhaps I can find what is wrong (tom at bluesky dot org).

Thanks so much. I am trying to do this, but so far am getting a failure notice ("The server timed out while waiting for the browser's request.") so the list is stuck in my outbox. Hopefully, it will come through to you later.

I might clarify--my word lists import correctly UNless the word involved has a Spanish variation, e.g., an accent or a tilde.

Hopefully, it will come through to you later.

Thanks for sending the file. I was able to import it and create a dictionary without any problems after opening it as UTF-8 and resaving as MacRoman. Chose Lucida Grande as the font.