Forum: Author Hangout

The two files are linked; one has a folder symbol and the second a .html extension. When I post the story/chapter, I upload the file with the .html file extension. I suspect that whatever data is in the folder symbol file is uploaded also. It works fine for me and meets my needs, so I never asked.

The only problem I have ever encountered with Word is its ellipse symbol (...). I strongly recommend that you don't use it; use 3 periods instead. The problem with Word's ellipse symbol is the SOL text converter does not like Word's symbol. The converter will do strange things to your story's text when the it encounters the symbol.

That's old news. Lazeez changed how they get processed and he automatically converts the ellipses symbol into the proper html command …

Also, the "save as single file" is what you want, as it doesn't create a separate folder with all the additions (which you won't use anyway).

Unfortunately, WORDs conversion to html is messy, as they include all of WORDs internal commands. You can turn them off, one at a time, but there's no single option to switch.

The 'Web Page (filtered)' option is the one that gives cleaner code than the plain old 'Web Page'. Filtered is what should be used when exporting as HTML.

You're correct. That's the one I meant to reference. It still creates a separate folder if there are any included files, but you can simply ignore those.

Lazeez changed how they get processed and he automatically converts the ellipses symbol into the proper html command …

I encountered the problem again last week. After reading your post, I informed Lazeez.

From his response, it sounds as if he did something to correct that issue, but evidently my Word settings has some obscure, hard-to-identify setting that is conflicting with the text converter. Seems some of the other Word users are also encountering a similar problem.

Lazeez seems to believe he has better things to do with his time, and I agree with him. I and any others who experience this conflict can simply use 3 periods. Much simpler than the solution Lazeez said he would have to implement to fix the problem on his end.

any others who experience this conflict can simply use 3 periods.

You may want to check what the code MS Word is sticking in the HTML actually is. In Unicode an ellipsis is called a hellip uses the code U+2026 and is displayed as three close together dots. To display it in html you use the code & h e l l i p ; I've put a space between every character so the code characters will display - everything in italics is one word in html code. If the MS Word doesn't convert it to that code it isn't provided the html code for an ellipsis. - …

edit to add - I ended the original post with the code, and you can see how the forum converted it to display properly after the dash.

I would need somebody with MS Word,

I don't know how.

I created a new Word doc which consisted simply as:
Emdash —
Ellipsis …

I saved it as HTML (filtered) and opened it in TextEdit to see what the HTML code looks like. I didn't see any HTML code so I used Finder to change the file extension to TXT. When I opened that file in TextEdit I still don't see the HTML.

If you tell me how to do it, I will.

to show the source code.

for most browsers you open the web page, place the cursor anywhere on the page, click the right button and you have a sub-window where you select View Source and click with the left button. This should open a new window with the source code you can read.

Otherwise, SB, send me the file you created and I'll see what i can do.

I didn't see any HTML code

If you open the HTML or TXT file in Notepad you should see the html code as plain text.

If you open the HTML or TXT file in Notepad you should see the html code as plain text.

I had Notepad on my Windows PC, but it's not on my Mac. When I went to a Mac class at the Apple Store they told me TextEditor is their version. But as Graybrd says, it's not the same.

I found out how to get the Develop in the Safari bar at the top (like File and Edit) and it has a show page source. But the right click is a great short-cut to do the same thing.

ETA: To use TextEdit as Notepad, you do this:

If you want to make it without any text formatting, go to menu "Format > Make Plain Text" (or shortcut 'Command+Shift+T".

But, I guess, that's if I wanted to code HTML from scratch. Doing what they said didn't show me the HTML.

Doing what they said didn't show me the HTML.

If and when you get a chance to look at the actual HTML code, the info on this page will help you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_XML_and_HTML_character_entity_references#Character_entity_references_in_HTML

in the left column is the actual html code that gets sandwiched between the & and ; symbols so they show as a single word. The next column is what it should render as, then the other codes etc. It's a great html code reference page for this stuff.

but MS Word is not among them.

Why change their attitude? It seems obvious that they do what they want and others can follow their lead, or go do their own thing. So far, it has worked for them, so I sincerely doubt they will change. At least as long as people continue to buy their products.

Generally unrelated, but is 'go piss up a rope' a regional thing? I've never heard such an expression in Canada.

I assume it means 'go fuck themselves', but can you use it as a direct insult too? As in: "If you don't like it, you'll go piss up a rope." or something like that.

wind.

Back in the 70's, a now defunct ratio station played a song by Jerry Jeff Walker titled, Pissin in the Wind. I always got a chuckle out of that song, especially the lyric "And we're pissin' in the wind, but it's blowing on all our friends"

http://www.lyricsmania.com/pissing_in_the_wind_lyrics_papa_m.html

Generally unrelated, but is 'go piss up a rope' a regional thing? I've never heard such an expression in Canada.

That's cause Canadian are too polite to piss up (or down) anyone's rope. 'D

You misunderstood the question. It was intended as a rhetorical question to say:

Why should Microsoft want to voluntarily change their attitude?

Last I heard there were only two products in the world with over a billion users. Windows and Office (though possibly Android may be the third).

A little out of date.

Android is over 2 Billions now, and iOS has roughly a billion too.

If you consider Facebook a 'product', then it has 1.95 Billion monthly users with over 1 billion daily users. Gmail is over a billion, Google search is over a billion.

With mobil, the scale has changed.

On the other hand, Word is on more PC's throughout the world than any other tool that has been mentioned here, by orders of magnitude.

Last I heard there were only two products in the world with over a billion users. Windows and Office (though possibly Android may be the third).

So what's the "standard"?

The official standard is the Open Document Format.

Now, as to the number of copies of MS Word and Windows sold, you have to remember a few things about them:

1. Most of the sales states are for multiple sales of different versions to the same customer group.

2. There are a large number of versions of Word and Windows and most versions are not fully compatible with other versions, thus the figures should be split down into the various versions.

3. The great majority of the sales of the earlier versions are no longer in use, due to having been erased from the computers they were on.

I'd love to see what the numbers on actual current actively used versions of MS software are, but I doubt you'll ever see them.

Edit to add: If you include the Operating System used on embedded devices and mobiles then some version on Unix or Linux have hit the tens of billions mark, and the number of Nix variants goes ballistic if you add in the mobile devices using the Nix derivative called Android.

The official standard is the Open Document Format.

Depends how you define "standard."

If it's a group of people who say they are the open standards group, then I guess you're right because they say so.

But if it's the standard format out there, meaning when someone wants you to send it to them other than pasting it in the body of an email, it's either rtf or doc/docx. For me, that's the real-world standard. Not what someone says, but what's actually in use.

Depends how you define "standard."

It's the standard set by the official group established by the governments and the industry leaders. As to how important the Open Document Format is, well, Microsoft didn't provide the capability to open ODF files in their office suite until after the US Dept of Administrative Services told them they could either incorporate the ability to open, and save ODF files into MS Office or never sell another copy to a US federal or state department or agency because most of the European and South American governments and businesses were using the ODF and the US governments had to be able to work with the ODF files to continue to do business.

Now, there are a number of businesses that insist on files by MS products you send them, and most of those are US based, but there are also non-US businesses that insist on ODF files. And that's not getting into the incompatibilities with the various versions of MS products.

Sadly, there's a multitude of methods to generate clean, standards-compliant HTML documents, but MS Word is not among them.

Mine get thru fine, but then I've agonized with WORD over the years to ensure it's behaving correctly. Note: I'm using Windows WORD 2013. The em-dash comes across as an actual em-dash, but as I noted, the ellipsis is converted to three dots.

Lazeez, if you want I can send you a test case, but it sounds like my files aren't what you're looking for.

@graybyrd
If you're software isn't generating the proper html codes, then that's precisely what Lazeez is looking for, to determine what code WORD is using instead.

To fix this issue on my end, I would need somebody with MS Word,

I found an app (CotEditor) in the Apple Store for HTML editing and installed it. I opened the .html file that was output from Word that I saved as "Webpage Filtered".

I expected to see what HTML code Word converted the em-dash and ellipsis to, BUT IT DIDN'T.

I didn't copy the entire HTML code here, only the part that represents the document I created. So Word has a special character in the HTML code rather than something like &mdash.

< div class=WordSection1 >

< p class=MsoNormal>Emdash — < /p >

< p class=MsoNormal>Ellipsis … < /p >

< p class=MsoNormal> < /p >

< /div >

I need the Word-generated file to be emailed to me to view the raw code

I'll email it to the SOL webmaster with the em-dash and ellipsis generated in Word and saved as HTML (not filtered).

Oops. The webmaster link gives me a form I'd have to paste in. Where do you want me to email it to?

ETA: If you don't want your email public, send it to switch_blayde@hotmail.com and I'll reply with the attachment.

is

Thanks EB. However, it really doesn't matter. Word converts the symbol to an HTML character and I don't have control over that conversion. It is what it is, and whatever character it generates, that character conflicts with the SOL text converter. Entering the 3 periods is as fast as going through the Symbols table.

There is the option of using CNTRL+Num to insert the character, which would be simpler. But I would have to expend the effort to figure out how to tell Word to output a different character code and there is also the fact that my keyboard doesn't have a Num key.

Word converts the symbol to an HTML character and I don't have control over that conversion. It is what it is, and whatever character it generates, that character conflicts with the SOL text converter. Entering the 3 periods is as fast as going through the Symbols table.

The issue is there is a Standard HTML character, but Word converts it to a Special MS HTML Character which isn't recognised by everyone else. Thus it gets rendered wrong.

The issue is there is a Standard HTML character

That is your issue Ernest. My issue is how do I get an ellipse through the text converter in the simplest way. I solved it by 3 periods.

I encountered the problem again last week. After reading your post, I informed Lazeez.

From his response, it sounds as if he did something to correct that issue, but evidently my Word settings has some obscure, hard-to-identify setting that is conflicting with the text converter. Seems some of the other Word users are also encountering a similar problem.

Worried this might be a new problem, I checked my latest posts to ensure they weren't screwed up. While I submitted the files with ellipses, the SOL converter changed them to three-dots, so Lazeez automated it in reverse.

Test: This is a … test.

Strange. Entering "&amp;hellip;" in the Forum produces an actual ellipsis, while the same code submitted to SOL converts it to three periods.

The only problem I have ever encountered with Word is its ellipse symbol (...). I strongly recommend that you don't use it; use 3 periods instead.

Ditto OpenOffice. I'm using OO as a plain text editor so I've just tracked down and removed ellipsis from OO's 'replacements' table.

AJ

The only problem I have ever encountered with Word is its ellipse symbol (...). I strongly recommend that you don't use it; use 3 periods instead. The problem with Word's ellipse symbol is the SOL text converter does not like Word's symbol. The converter will do strange things to your story's text when the it encounters the symbol.

I used Word (on my Mac) to create a file with an ellipsis and em-dash. I saved them as .html (not filtered) and emailed the file to Lazeez. He said Word created the ellipsis and em-dash properly so the SOL text converter would not have a problem.

If you're having a problem it may be your version of Word.

If you're having a problem it may be your version of Word.

It may be one particular version of WORD, or perhaps a single setting not being set. We'll need to send more copies to Lazeez to trace the problem to a specific copy of WORD before we'll know for sure. But as I've said, I've never had a problem with using those characters on SOL before, but then I make a point of cleaning up all the crap that WORD shoves into their html files.

but then I make a point of cleaning up all the crap that WORD shoves into their html files.

Word didn't convert the em-dash or ellipsis to their HTML codes, so what would there be to clean up before submitting to the SOL Wizard?

Word didn't convert the em-dash or ellipsis to their HTML codes, so what would there be to clean up before submitting to the SOL Wizard?

I only meant that I'd spent a LONG time, figuring out how to turn off the various WORD options so it'll produce 'clean' html code, so that may have had an impact. However, it's more likely it's a version based matter. As I said, I'm running the PC based MS WORD 2013 producing the older .doc files, though I had the same results on SOL back when I was using WORD 2010.

it may be your version of Word.

I know. Lazeez has also said that he suspects it is a setting in the Word program.

Keep in mind I am running Microsoft Office Professional 2010 in a Windows' environment. That may be part of the reason I am having problem and you aren't. I doubt I am the only person running that version in a Windows' environment, so I shared my experience with others.

I got tired of continually putting spaces in my html codes

On wattpad, when I want to show the HTML, I use &lt (with the ;) instead of the <

But here it doesn't work.

I received a file with the problematic code. This is how Word —sometime— creates an ellipsis:

< span style='mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Symbol'>¼< /span>

no wonder it doesn't crossover to good html code for it.

I remember a recent story littered with occurrences of spurious-looking ¼s. Did the author ever figure out the problem? If not, can anyone remember their name so we can pass on the 'good' news?

AJ

Did the author ever figure out the problem

It was an ongoing problem for me for over a year, so it may have been one of my stories. I saw it in another writer's story and let him know what Lazeez had told me. Do you recall the title or what the story was about?

Sorry, no. All I can remember is that the story was posted in the last week or so.

AJ

No problem AJ. A recollection popped into my mind about receiving an email from you regarding my story Time Scope. Thanks for pointing out my mistake regarding numbering the farms. The 1/4 problem appeared twice in that chapter, so there is a high probability you were thinking of me. I posted an update to correct the glitch and error.

MS elected to base their system on UTF-16 which is not the same as UTF-8.

Rather than being proprietary, that's actually looking forward, as most of the rest of the world (i.e. China, Japan and others with more complex single character words) require UTF-16, whereas the simpler Western countries don't.

Not that focusing on one doesn't confuse things.

UTF-16

I really don't understand the UTF.

Why isn't UTF-8 a subset of UTF-16?

I really don't understand the UTF.

Why isn't UTF-8 a subset of UTF-16?

UTF, or "Unicode Transformation Format", is what 'unicode' is. The only difference between the two, is that UTF-8 take up only a single byte for each character, whereas more complex languages require two bytes for each character, thus they take up at least twice as much space. However, html unicode characters often take up much more, as they create codes such as "&hellip;" instead of a single one or two byte letter.

What we're arguing here is that we want our software to use the more complex html coding, rather than the device specific codes (i.e. PC, Mac or Linux based codes).

UTF-8 take up only a single byte for each character,

Actually, I just watched some videos and UTF-8 can take up to 4 bytes for a character.

So UTF is the next evolution of ASCII (which is what I was familiar with on a mainframe years ago). ASCII couldn't handle the needs for more than Latin numbers and letters so they came up with something that could.

This is what I don't understand.

I type two hyphens in Word and it changes it to an em-dash. Good, that's what I want. Lazeez says if I copy and paste that character into the SOL Wizard, it will show up as an em-dash in my story. Also good. That's what I want.

But there are cases where that's not true and the em-dash shows up as a "1/4".

If I were manually converting my Word docx to HTML I'd find all the italics and surround them with the "< i" tags and do a find/replace on the em-dash to change it to an mdash.

But if all I was doing was copying/pasting from Word to some place, such as the Wizard, how can I ensure it would display properly?

But there are cases where that's not true and the em-dash shows up as a "1/4".

If I were manually converting my Word docx to HTML I'd find all the italics and surround them with the "< i" tags and do a find/replace on the em-dash to change it to an mdash.

But if all I was doing was copying/pasting from Word to some place, such as the Wizard, how can I ensure it would display properly?

The screw-up seems tied to your version of WORD. If your text has received the all-clear from Lazeez, I wouldn't worry about it. If it was a problem, you could easily determine it by examining the specific references in your posted chapters. If the text doesn't contain any errors, then you should be safe.

Note: While my text is in the clear, and I'm currently using the PC version of WORD 2013, I'm not using the .docx format, so WORD may have changed the behavior in the newer format while leaving the older format as it was. Until we get more information, it's hard to tell which versions of WORD are problematic.

I'd suggest searching your posted text for any em-dashes. If it doesn't find any, then search for the 1/4 symbol. That will clearly indicate if you have anything to worry about.

If anyone here wants to ensure their text is clean before they post, I'd create a test sample using WORD's "Save as formatted html". You can then examine the html code in a text reader and see whether WORD includes anything in their "Symbol" font. If so, your version of WORD is questionable. I'd send the copy you saved to Lazeez along with which version of WORD it is, so he can figure out how to avoid this problem in the future.

It's more work for Lazeez, but I'm not sure how else to address it. But at least, if we do the necessary leg work on our own before sending him anything, we're at least minimizing our impact on his time.

The screw-up seems tied to your version of WORD. If your text has received the all-clear from Lazeez, I wouldn't worry about it.

My version of Word is fine. Lazeez checked it out. That wasn't what I was asking.

I recently copy/pasted sections of Word files into a literary agent's webpage form. I assumed all the characters would copy over intact.

My question is how one would know that.

I recently copy/pasted sections of Word files into a literary agent's webpage form.

How exacting were the agent's submission guidelines?

AJ

How exacting were the agent's submission guidelines?

I don't remember the exact words, but they warned you that copying from Word could be a problem. For instance, they said to put a blank line between paragraphs since the indenting won't work.

I may have screwed up the blank line thing. When I pasted it, it had two blank lines so I deleted one. I'm wondering what that looked like on their end.

There was a time when Word looked like becoming the de facto submission standard, superseding single-sided, double-spaced etc hard copies!

Large agents usually have their own reformatting software to coerce submissions to meet the submission requirements of each dead tree publisher they submit to. I'm not quite sure how pasting into a web form would work. It strikes me that when the final format is known, take SOL for instance, then a web form is fine, but not when submitting to dead tree publishers, each of who has their own house style.

Oh well, I've all this to come if I ever complete anything worthy of chucking at a publisher. :(

AJ

Large agents usually have their own reformatting software to coerce submissions to meet the submission requirements of each dead tree publisher they submit to. I'm not quite sure how pasting into a web form would work. It strikes me that when the final format is known, take SOL for instance, then a web form is fine, but not when submitting to dead tree publishers, each of who has their own house style.

Chances are, knowing large scale publishers and the agents they work with, there's mostly looking at quick ways to thin out the crap, so they probably toss anything which doesn't display after submission, without even glancing at it. :( Generally, the chances of getting a manuscript into the hands of anyone who'll even glance at it are pretty miniscule (not that I've ever tried it myself).

Some html files are so screwed up that sometime we have to send it back as it can't be fixed.

Wheew. well, since I don't get all of mine back, I figure they must be mostly OK. I do try to ensure they're using only the html code you allow.

While it might be helpful, it's not really necessary. The converter finds the codes that it supports and converts them to SOL tags and simply deletes anything extra.

So if you want to try some files as you use them for your own purposes, it might help you save some effort.

Actually, it helps me, because I also want a simple HTML file for my own records, so there's no real work between the two.

The converter finds the codes that it supports and converts them to SOL tags and simply deletes anything extra.

That's why I manually surround the italic words in my story with the HTML "i" tags since the Wizard supports them, but I leave the ellipsis and em-dash characters created by my version of Word as is.

That's why I manually surround the italic words in my story with the HTML "i" tags since the Wizard supports them, but I leave the ellipsis and em-dash characters created by my version of Word as is.

Again, I went with the assumption of 'if my code ain't broke, don't fix it'. So I cleaned up my own html and submitted it, and when it worked I figured it was 'satisfactory'. When something didn't work, I quickly identify the issue and resolved it within an hour (of noticing it didn't post correctly, which often takes a while).

For riding bareback with software for so long, it's amazing I never crashed and burned. My biggest problem was always forgetting to switch Windows character sets to UTF-8 for 16-bit characters.

While it might be helpful, it's not really necessary. The converter finds the codes that it supports and converts them to SOL tags and simply deletes anything extra.

So if you want to try some files as you use them for your own purposes, it might help you save some effort.

I figured that out pretty quickly (without anything failing or being sent back). I'd submit the wrong character set, but the text would process without a hitch and the 'converter' would copy the 'allowable' text into the necessary character set. My only issue was when I started using 16-bit code, when I learned which characters needed html coding and which didn't. That sounds like a recipe for disaster, but I kept my code basic while still adding all sorts of bells and whistles, which SOL simply stripped out, which is fine with me.

Some authors are still on XP and IE6!

How can they even log in? I mostly use Chrome because XP's version of IE and SOL aren't able to talk securely.

AJ

While the proportion is minuscule, there are 263 site users still on IE6!

I don't know if it's the case with these users, but many, many moons ago when i still used Win XP and MSIE6 I downloaded and used a program called Avant Browser which was basically an overlay on MSIE6 with better security and a few extra features. However, it also presented to the world as MSIE6 in all those site stats gathering software. I believe it's still available for a number of versions of Windows and MSIE.

How can they even log in? I mostly use Chrome because XP's version of IE and SOL aren't able to talk securely.

I'm not a lot better, as I'm still on Win 7 and absolutely refuse to upgrade once they started instituting 'forced upgrades'. Now I'm just waiting for my desktop to croak, at which point I'll finally move everything over the a MAC, but my desktop was custom designed and the Mac's, while reliable, aren't nearly as powerfully configured.

I'll be sorry to see this desktop die, but I'll never buy another PC or Linux machine again. The one is too buggy, and the latter is to difficult to 'work around'.

But, those are just the gripes of an ex-software designer. I don't like mucking with the nuts and bolts, but I want tools that allow me to do whatever the frig I want. :(

Attaching files is whole other ball of wax. If the attached file is plain text, then it's up to our tools and the moderators to handle things correctly. If it's HTML, then it's more complex as the method of creation of the html code vary so widely. Various tools, some of it screwy like Word, and many people who create their own html. I receive a lot of html files from many authors that are hand crafted, and some of it is faulty. Many authors use notepad to create html files and use the ISO-8859-1 encoding declaration, while notepad uses windows-1252 encoding by default. So I receive files that need to be handled by the moderator to override the Wizard's automated html->tags converter and figure things out and change stuff manually.

I hate to admit it, but I learned everything I know about html from examining other people's code and then figuring out what code performed which functions. I then started searching for webpages that performed like I wanted them to, and copied the portions that did those particular functions.

But then, I learned to code using software products which were no new, there were no coding manuals (other than a basic command reference), so I'm pretty experienced in figuring out how things operate and decoding/debugging code on the fly, as well as pointing likely problems in unfamiliar code.

I figured out character sheets right away.

I learned everything I know about html from examining other people's code and then figuring out what code performed which functions.

I used w3schools for both HTML and CSS. Here's their site:
https://www.w3schools.com/html/

They also have a validator.

Please note neither has the 1/4 symbol in them, nor are they the sam as the windows 1252 code.

Also, the same code ("&hellip;") works in Windows 1252 as well.

But you can insert a special character in your text.

But those characters aren't recognized by the SOL Wizard.

But those characters aren't recognized by the SOL Wizard.

They should be in a format the Wizard should recognize instead of the odd MS Code. Only way is to try them out and see.

But those characters aren't recognized by the SOL Wizard.

No, only a few essential html codes are accepted, but still, it's a way of ensuring you're entering the correct code, and it's a way of verifying whether your version of WORD is screwing you over or not.

As for your worries about copying text to a third party, that has nothing to do with the code you copy, and everything to do with the system you're copying to. Most online tools aren't terribly robust! However, I'm guessing if it's an issue then they're already aware of it, but simply aren't willing to invest the time in trying to fix it.

If they're worried about the results, they can always request a new copy, at which point you'll know to remove ALL publication marks from the document.

at which point you'll know to remove ALL publication marks from the document.

And that I suspect is the key point. They're Publishing Marks and not writing characters.

Usually, any copy/paste operation is handled through the computer's system API for copy/paste. Copy/paste usually standardizes text encoding to make this operation seamless without the user having to worry about anything. So if you copy an A, you'll paste an A and it's not about hex 42 or hex 41.

Great! Thanks.

So when I copy the "A" from my application that doesn't use UTF-8 into an HTML file that defines the charset as UTF-8, will the browser display an "A" or a "B"?

I don't know enough about the subject to have a truly valid opinion. But logic says that assuming your oddball application saves characters as hex values that differ from the characters corresponding UTF-8 values, then copying those hex values and pasting them into an application that uses the UTF-8 character set would end up with you seeing a garbaged text string on your monitor.

I don't know enough about the subject to have a truly valid opinion. But logic says that assuming your oddball application saves characters as hex values that differ from the characters corresponding UTF-8 values, then copying those hex values and pasting them into an application that uses the UTF-8 character set would end up with you seeing a garbaged text string on your monitor.

Again, the various character sets all treat simple text largely the same. The difference is how they treat 'special' characters, like publication marks (ex: smart quotes, ellipses, em-dashes, etc.) In those cases, they may substitute either different characters or, more likely, characters designed for another machine (i.e. it'll only display on one particular machine, though in the case of Windows-2381?, every browser will display the page as if the computer was a Windows machine, in other words, the browser corrects the mistaken behavior).

The solution, in any base, is to use html commands rather than uploading (copying & pasting) machine specific codes.

The solution, in any base, is to use html commands rather than uploading (copying & pasting) machine specific codes.

Only if what you paste into recognizes the HTML tag.

It sounds as if your post is addressing something other than SB's original post.

If I understand SB's question regarding a hypothetical application using a hypothetical character set (let's call it XYZ), then the XYZ character set defines the characters to be displayed as Hex codes. Let us assume for this example that the text string ABC equates to the hypothetical character set's hex values of 21, 22,and 23.

Now to a computer these hex values are stored as a string of 1's and 0's. It is hypothetical application and the XYZ character set that results in the hex values of 21, 22, and 23 being translated into the text character string ABC.

So if the hex values were to be copied and pasted into a text string of an application's file that defines the file's hex values to be characters of the UTF-8 character set, the resulting character string seen on the monitor would be !"#.

Or am I missing something?

Minor edits to correct terms.

Or am I missing something?

You got it right. Hex wasn't important. I'm just more familiar with hex than other ways of defining it.

But according to Lazeez, it's not the binary bits that are copied and then mapped to receiver's code table. It's your computer's API copying the actual character, not the binary bits.

What I still don't understand is why it doesn't always do it right.

I'm just more familiar with hex than other ways of defining it.

Hex or hexadecimal is the base of one of several common numbering systems:

Binary - base 2 - 2 values (0 and 1),
Quatnary -base 4 - 4 values (0-3),
Octal - base 8 - 8 values (0-7),
Decimal - base 10 - 10 values (0-9)
Hexadecimal -base 16 -16 values (0-9, A, B, C, D, E, and F).

Today's computer data buses are generally 16-bit or 32-bit words, and the words are expressed as one or two hexadecimal values (i.e., B or B9). That's easier to express and remember than a string of 16 or 32 ones and zeros.

That's easier to express and remember than a string of 16 or 32 ones and zeros.

Which is why I used hex instead of binary.

ETA: Many, many years ago, an IBM SE (Systems Engineer) told me he gave his age in hexadecimal to sound younger. It worked until be turned 2A.

Only a 6 year inconvenience. Once he turned 48(decimal) he could go back to being 30(hexadecimal) again. By that same token, a 64YO could claim 40, and an 80YO could claim 50. :)

I prefer claiming I'm 2E years old! It inspires more curiosity and opens discussion options. 'D

It's your computer's API copying the actual character, not the binary bits.

Computers don't work with characters; they only handle 1's and 0's. Thus it is the binary bits that are copied. The computer displays those numeric values as text string letters.

Thus it is the binary bits that are copied.

The copy/paste functions must do something other than copy binary bits.

That was the question I asked. If the binary bits for one application are different than the binary bits of the 2nd application for the same character, what character would end up in the 2nd app (e.g., the SOL Wizard).

Lazeez said it would copy/paste correctly because the computer's API takes care of it. What that's telling me is the API knows the charset of the 1st app and converts the binary bits to what the 2nd app has defined for that character.

Some time ago, ZoneAlarm rewrote their firewall software in C++. I discovered it left binary crap on the clipboard, interfering with other programs such as M$ Excel, which also uses the clipboard for copying and pasting within Visual Basic macros.

AJ

So our tools contain an application that can translate from one character set to another

That's the part I was missing. It's not magic. You do convert from one charset to another.

So problems will only occur if UTF-8 does not have a character used in the story or the Wizard's converter doesn't recognize the charset used in the input file (which is highly unlikely).

For SOL submissions, I never did a copy/paste. It's a long story why I did it a this way, but while writing my story in Word I would type in the HTML "i" tags around words I wanted to be italics. And I used "--" for the em-dash and 3 dots for the ellipsis (having removed them from the autocorrect table because of the next step). I then saved it as txt and attached that .txt file to the SOL Wizard submission.

But now when I write in Word I do the command/i to italicize words and let Word's autocorrect convert the "--" to an em-dash and the 3 dots to an ellipsis.

The next time I write a story for SOL, I plan on saving that docx file as "filtered html" and attaching that .html file to the SOL Wizard. I'm assuming the "save as" will put the HTML "i" tags around the italicized words and the SOL converter will handle the em-dash and ellipsis characters (converting from the charset Word uses in the filtered HTML file to UTF-8).

The copy/paste functions must do something other than copy binary bits.

What you see on your screen is nothing more than a series of 1's and 0's in your computer's memory. When you block a section of text on your screen for a copy operation, the computer selects the corresponding 1's and 0's in its memory. When the copy command is given, the selected binary bits are copied to "clip board" memory. Positioning your cursor on the screen and issuing the paste command causes the computer to select the corresponding point in memory and then insert the 1's and 0's stored in "clip board" memory.

What you are overlooking is the file the computer is using to create the screen's image contains numerous definitions, such as the character set definition. The computer uses all of these definitions to create what you see on the screen. So the copied binary bits are copied from a defined text string and pasted into a defined text string. It is the other definitions in the file that tell the computer what to do with those binary bits.

Lazeez said it would copy/paste correctly

The entire paragraph is correct. When we send a file to the SOL converter, that file contains the definition of the character set being used. The SOL converter can convert that character set's codes to recreate the proper character in the SOL converter's character set because the original file defined the character set being used.

However, that will only occur if converter has a translation routine and database for the original file's character set. In your example, you assumed an obscure (unknown?) character set. Now if the SOL converter received a file using that character set and the converter does not have a translation routine for the obscure character set, the converter will generate a error message and abort the conversion.

In your example, you assumed an obscure (unknown?) character set.

Only because I was lazy. I didn't want to search through all the charsets to find an example that would work. So I made one up.

So I made one up.

A fictitious character set was good for your example. Though difficult to talk specifics.

Holy Hades Butt Crack. I had hoped for a couple suggestions, but wow.

There are no simple questions here, only excuses for us old-timers to reveal everything minutia of detail we've accumulated over the years. 'D