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Using Accented and Special Characters on the Web

Special Characters in Dreamweaver

First, make sure your cursor is where you want the character inserted. Then select Insert > HTML > Special Characters > Other


In the box that comes up, select the character you want and click OK.


Accented and Special Characters in your HTML

If you do not have Dreamweaver, you can use accented characters in your web pages by using the ISO-8859 html codes. Use this table to find the special character that you want, and copy its code into your html.


For example, if you want to use the lowercase "o" with a slash in it, find the line that reads

small o, slash ¿ ø --> ¿ ø --> ¿


Next to the ø there are two codes: one says ø and the other ø. These are the codes that you need to type in to your html. Either one is fine; they both do the same thing.

For example, if you want to say

"I am a good cøok,"
then type into your html:
"I am a good cøok."

Making your JavaScript display Accented and Special Characters inside of forms

Unfortunately, this is significantly more complicated than making accented characters inside plain html. Use this form to find the accented character that you need. (Be sure you are looking at the whole form: it is very long.)

For example, we find the line

oslash 248 F8 ¿

See the third entry, the F8? This is what you need to place between the % sign and the second single quote in the unescape() function inside your JavaScript applet. In this case, you would type unescape('%F8'). Somewhere inside your JavaScript, you will have a phrase, say I am a good cook, and you want to change it so that the program displays it as I am a good cøok.

The way to do this is to change the phrase, or string

"I am a good cook"
so that it reads
"I am a good c" + unescape('%F8') + "ok"

IMPORTANT: If you make a mistake here, it will not work. This must be typed exactly as above. If it did not work for you, proofread your JavaScript and see if you made a mistake.

These codes are different on Macintosh, Windows, and UNIX computers. Something that looks fine on a Mac will look all silly on a Windows machine, and vice versa: so if you need to do this, be sure you make and test your JavaScript on the operating system on which it will be most used.


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USCS Faculty Instructional Technology Center
2006-2007
Last updated 5/17/2007