cut & paste from word

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1

I wrote a rather long post the other day, and to spare everyone my atrocious spelling, I composed it in Word and then C&Ped it into the reply box. The post looked fine when I reviewed it at home where I use Internet Explorer, but when I read it at work with an AOL browser some freaky things happen. All my apostrophes and quotes appear as symbols you’d use Alt codes to create.

What the heck is going on?

Does this mean that everybody with an AOL browser thinks I’m an even worse typist than I really am? Do the UBB folks ever plan on incorporating a spell checker?

2

Here’s a link to my post:

http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/001226.html

Is it just the AOL browser that can’t read it correctly?

3

Nope, not just AOL. I see it with the bizarre symbols, too. I use IE5.

4

Actually, Papabear, I just tried a C&P from Word on the “experiment” thread and it worked out ok. I’m using Netscape and your apostrophes and quotes look goofy (no offense to Goofy). What version of Word are you using?

5

I’m using Word97. Let me cut and paste something with it:

apostrophe’

“quotes”

6

The above looks normal to me. I’m using my IE browser at home.

7

They don’t look normal to me, PapaBear. I suspect it’s not that you’re using Word, but the font within Word that you’re using. I’ve had this happen to me before in other circumstances (one case was a filing in a hearing!). Some Word fonts use “normal” characters, while others use symbols to represent the quotes, etc. I would suggest you try different fonts and test them here.

8

AvantGarde’s “Non-TrueType”
Arial’s “TrueType”

9

Apostrophe’s and Quotes “ in Times New Roman TT
Apostrophe’s and Quotes “ in Arial TT
Apostrophe’s and Quotes ‘ “ in Courier New TT
Apostrophe’s and Quotes “ in Bookman Old Style TT
Apostrophe’s and Quotes “ in MS Sans Serif
Apostrophe’s and Quotes “ in MS Serif

(When I paste them in, they look like MS Serif (or whatever MS uses and “default ascii” display in Notepad).
I’m still on AOL 3.0 using Word97 4.0 under Windows95.

Tom~

10

. . . but when posted, they look like some sort of san serif font (similar to Arial and MS Sans Serif, although it is neither, having “blockier” letters and backward tilting quotes).

Tom~

11

I use NetScape 4.51, and PB’s post looks strange. It may have something to do with MSWord’s formatting characters, which are normally invisible, being C&P’ed into the message.

BTW…AOL no longer makes their own browser. If you’re using a 32-bit client, then you’re using either MSIE3.2 or MSIE4.01 (well, usually, anyhow).

12

PapaBear.
Word, especially -97, does a lot of thing automatically. If I write something more ambitious here, I do what you do, write in word and c&p.
You should check the settings. There is one place (I couldn’t direct you, cuase I have a Swedish version) where you “replace straight quotation marks with typographical quotation marks.”

If I write one page in word, I create a file, which is about 40K. If I paste it to Notepad, it,s about 1,5K. Word is way too big and advanced for every day use.

ct

When in trouble or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout

13

Thanks for all the suggestions, folks. I’m gonna do a little experimenting on a test thread before I try to C&P from Word again.

14

Wow.I guess your own posts will always look OK on your equipment. By the way, if you take parts of the threads here and copy them into WORD, it sure generates a lot of garbage for the little icons, profile etc, above. Sometimes I’ve tried to print parts of a topic to read them. Infinite Monkeys andf Shakespeare was one of them.Cutting and pasting into an ASCII format should be the simplest.