# browser test
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-test/409059
**Category:** About This Message Board
**Created:** [June 22, 2007, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-test/409059 "2007-06-22T22:15:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2007, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-test/409059/1 "2007-06-22T22:15:39Z")
[symbol]Panopticon[/symbol]
Panopticon
Panopticon
For some reason, these aren’t showing up in the symbol font for me. I’m using Firefox 2.0.0.4 on Windows 2000.
What’s odd is that if I take the page’s source and drop that in a blank HTML doc, it shows up properly. Must be a CSS issue.
---
### Author:  [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2007, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-test/409059/2 "2007-06-23T01:40:13Z")
They do show as greek characters for me. IE7 on XP.
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### Author:  [@Nightsong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightsong)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2007, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-test/409059/3 "2007-06-23T02:15:11Z")
They don’t show up as greek letters to me.
Firefox 2.0.0.4, WinXP Pro
* * *
\<\< We all live in a yellow subroutine. \>\>
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### Author:  [@skotjamb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skotjamb)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2007, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-test/409059/4 "2007-06-23T02:45:45Z")
[QUOTE=Nightsong]
They don’t show up as greek letters to me.
Firefox 2.0.0.4, WinXP Pro
[/QUOTE]
On Firefox 2.0.0.3, it shows as courier. On IE7 and Maxthon, the letters are greek.
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### Author:  [@Myglaren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myglaren)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2007, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-test/409059/5 "2007-06-23T08:53:08Z")
Firefox 2…0.0.4 - courier.
Opera 9.21 - courier.
Maxthon - Greek
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### Author:  [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2007, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-test/409059/6 "2007-06-23T16:35:44Z")
Firefox 2.0.0.4, XP. They show up in my default font, Book Antiqua.
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### Author:  [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)
#### Post date: [June 23, 2007, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-test/409059/7 "2007-06-23T20:54:34Z")
Firefox 2.0.0.4 on MacOS X. It’s greek to me.
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### Author:  [@Myglaren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myglaren)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2007, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-test/409059/8 "2007-06-24T11:57:49Z")
Firefox 2.0.0.4 on Ubuntu Fiesty - courier.
Epiphany on Ubuntu Fiesty - courier.
Galeon on Ubuntu Fiesty - courier.
Konqueror on Ubuntu Fiesty - courier.
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### Author:  [@Canadjun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadjun)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2007, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-test/409059/9 "2007-06-24T12:47:35Z")
Firefox 2.0.0.4 on Windows XP. No idea what font it is (how do I tell?), but it’s not symbol and it’s not courier (maybe Times? It’s serifed).
What’s very interesting is that there is no need to drop the page’s source into a blank HTML document - just cut and paste that word into Word and it shows up in the symbol font (I’m using Word 2003).
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### Author:  [@Myglaren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myglaren)
#### Post date: [June 24, 2007, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-test/409059/10 "2007-06-24T15:35:59Z")
Dropped it into Abiword and it became Times New Roman.
Open Office 2 turns it into Greek
_edit to add_ - it is identified as Times, not Symbol. though.
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### Author:  [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2007, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-test/409059/11 "2007-06-25T01:41:49Z")
Not quite sure what to tell you here except that vBulletin was originally written around Internet Explorer. If you choose to use another browser there’s not a lot we can do about it.
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### Author:  [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2007, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-test/409059/12 "2007-06-25T15:08:19Z")
Weird, for me they show up as “Cthulhu Fhtagn Fhtagn.”
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### Author:  [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2007, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-test/409059/13 "2007-06-25T21:41:15Z")
Lemme see if any of this helps –
> **[Make pages using the Symbol font display correctly in Mozilla/Firefox -...](https://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1689425)**
>
> The Symbol font is often used in scientific webpages to display special symbols such as greek letters and the integral sign. For example, the HTML code ...
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### Author:  [@testy\_test](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/testy_test)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2007, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-test/409059/14 "2007-06-29T02:41:21Z")
test post
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### Author:  [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2007, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-test/409059/15 "2007-06-29T15:34:42Z")
See this article:
[http://www.plasmaphysics.org.uk/papers/symbolfont.htm](http://www.plasmaphysics.org.uk/papers/symbolfont.htm)
I tried it - worked for me.
---
### Author:  [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2007, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-test/409059/16 "2007-06-29T17:31:32Z")
Interesting. I only applied step 2 on the page **ZipperJJ** and that worked. I wonder if I’ll see any weird results down the road.
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### Author:  [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2007, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-test/409059/17 "2007-06-29T17:43:16Z")
Woohoo, it works!
Thanks, thanks!
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### Author:  [@Myglaren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myglaren)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2007, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-test/409059/18 "2007-06-30T07:17:30Z")
Bloody Vista won’t let me make the changes.
I’ll try it on the XP machine later though.
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### Author:  [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2007, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-test/409059/19 "2007-06-30T10:53:54Z")
Interesting: I’m using IE7 and while the characters show as Greek if I open the thread, they show as non-Greek in the preview.
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### Author:  [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2007, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/browser-test/409059/20 "2007-06-30T17:48:41Z")
The preview is set to strip HTML. What is making those letters in the symbol font is HTML:
```auto
Panopticon
Panopticon
Panopticon
```
Note that there’s also an HTML line break in there (\
) and you don’t see that in the preview either.
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