Strange symbols

peter_65

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Mar 24, 2011
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Hello,I am using Win & with win live mail - no real problems except that whenever I use an apostrophe my recipient gets it as a strange Greek like symbol - any suggestions as to why
 
I suspect your system and your recipient's systems have different default character encodings. It may help to use an explicit character encoding on your e-mail. For example, in Thunderbird you can specify the character encoding on an e-mail that you're creating by using the following menu path in the e-mail composition window:

Options -> Character Encoding
 

birdy480

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Mar 28, 2011
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Go to the mail home page and click on the far top left arrow which will bring up a list of options. Go to options then E mail optoions. Under READ international setting make sure default setting is UTF-8 and put a chech in Usedefault encoding for all incoming messages. Next go to SEND under that make sure default encoding is UTF-8 and check the box that says when replying to messages always use English Hedders. This took me a while to figure out--- hope this helps you.
 

peter_65

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Mar 24, 2011
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Hi birdy 480, I really appreciate the time and effort in suggesting a solution to these strange symbols. I have followed your instructions but am unable to change the setting for the READ option - it is set to Western European (ISO) and no option arrow. The Send settings do allow a change and I have altered them from the same ISO to your suggested UTF-8 but I appear to have the same problem. So far, the only way I seem to be able to avoid the problem is not to use the ' mark.
I will welcome any further suggestions if you are willing to offer me.
 

peter_65

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Mar 24, 2011
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I have had help from another source and it would appear that these strange symbols are Smart Quotes and a .....nuisance! It is possible to correct them whilst typing, but what a fuss. The problem occurs when typing either an apostrophe or quotation marks. However by backspacing immediately after the type - and notice the small change in the shape of these characters on the screen - the recipient gets a proper punctuation mark.
Andy Rathbone, author of some of the Dummies books has helped me in this respect and is trying to find a permanent way to stop it from happening. I am also trying to make contact with Microsoft on this issue.