Unbroken font codes in email

tehidyman · Apr 28, 2011, 14:14:34

I have recently noticed that certain symbols in emails (AOL Mail and Thunderbird) have appeared as a little box containing two rows of two alphanumerics. This in some cases makes the text difficult to understand. I cut and pasted a sample to insert in this post but on preview it gives the right symbols eg.what to ifs Which appears like [00 over 93] what to if [ 00 over 92] s [00 over 94] [00 over 96]. I have checked and find it occurs in emails from at least three different contacts. Any ideas as to what may be causing this and how to correct it? Windows XP and Firefox 4. and I did recently upgrade Firefox. I have just checked using Internet explorer and there is just a little box, where the horizontal bars are heavier than the vertical

pctech · Apr 28, 2011, 16:11:01

Not so up on Thunderbird and AOL but normally the box indicates the coding isn't supported by the code page being used as far as I'm aware.

In the view menu if you have a character encoding option you can try and tinker with this to see if it helps.

Rik · Apr 28, 2011, 16:40:08

It may be as simple as a missing font, I'm seeing the boxes in your post and in the page source.

tehidyman · Apr 28, 2011, 17:24:02

Quote from: Rik on Apr 28, 2011, 16:40:08
It may be as simple as a missing font, I'm seeing the boxes in your post and in the page source.

How odd. When I previewed my post the codes had unscrambled but they have not in the forum. I tried playing with the font codes with no joy. Forwarded two of the emails with the problem to my yahoo mail account. The sample in my post was corrected but the £ signs in the other were still in boxed code.

Rik · Apr 28, 2011, 17:25:23

Do you know what font was used?

pctech · Apr 28, 2011, 17:32:39

Yep could just be a damaged/missing font as Rik says.

tehidyman · Apr 29, 2011, 09:30:31

Quote from: Rik on Apr 28, 2011, 17:25:23
Do you know what font was used?

Have been trying to find out what fonts have been used. Not sure if I have any sensible replies. My default font for AOL mail and Thunderbird is Arial. Looking in the emails at Page information UTF-8 is common to both and to Yahoo mail. Yahoo mail uses Quirks mode but Aol uses Standard compliance mode. AOL (which does not work) Has X-UA compatible IE=Emulate IE8 (which I have installed) whilst Yahoo does not have this item at all. This may be a load of irrelevant information. I am wondering if the easiest solution is to forward such emails to myself at Yahoo though this looks like admitting defeat which is not readily in my nature

Rik · Apr 29, 2011, 09:43:20

Re-install Windows.

tehidyman · Apr 29, 2011, 10:01:17

Quote from: Rik on Apr 29, 2011, 09:43:20
Re-install Windows.

I had to do this once before and swore (many times in fact!) never to do it again. I think that that solution may cause me more problems than this relatively minor one. Again thanks for the advice and also glad to see you back in action again, hope your recovery is maintained.

Rik · Apr 29, 2011, 10:09:27

Thanks.