# Argh!  How? the heck? do I make IE? stop displaying? question marks?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/argh-how-the-heck-do-i-make-ie-stop-displaying-question-marks/219876>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 19, 2003, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/argh-how-the-heck-do-i-make-ie-stop-displaying-question-marks/219876 "2003-12-19T00:05:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/argh-how-the-heck-do-i-make-ie-stop-displaying-question-marks/219876/1 "2003-12-19T00:05:50Z")

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I’m on a new computer here- and it’s got some font weirdness in Internet Explorer 6. It seems that every time a quote symbol (and possibly others), it displays a question mark.

Anyone have any idea on how to fix this? Jeez, it’s annoying.

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**Author:** ![DarrenS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@DarrenS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarrenS)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/argh-how-the-heck-do-i-make-ie-stop-displaying-question-marks/219876/2 "2003-12-19T00:09:06Z")

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Try View | Encoding and make sure it’s set to Western European.

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**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2003, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/argh-how-the-heck-do-i-make-ie-stop-displaying-question-marks/219876/3 "2003-12-19T00:28:57Z")

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I agree with the encoding. MS invented “Smart Quotes”, aka “quotes where they angle ever-so-slightly inward aren’t we kewl!”, and this is probably it. Unfortunately, they tacked it on to an already-established standard font set, just 'cause they could, leading the extra quote to generally map to a “?” character for anyone else. Should you wish to make HTML friendly for non-MS users, check out the [demoroniser](http://www.fourmilab.ch/webtools/demoroniser/).