Special symbols became invisible

Viewing problem

[catpet]

I own a shopping site on the net, and all of a sudden I cannot see ½” ¼” ¾” and £ symbols in the descriptions on the site but the space is still there where they should be. I have been in touch with my site builder and host and he says all the settings are fine his end and to che my FTP settings as all the symbols are showing on his computer and to be honest they show on some of my friends computer. Not being HTML literate I am seeking advice as to what to do! I cannot even paste them in it just leaves a blank space as though they are there but I just cannot see them.

[bill]

Sounds like your page encoding settings may be off. If these symbols were visible for you previously and the site's charset and encoding has not been changed then it may be your browser's encoding settings that may be off. Try changing the encoding on your browser.

[rocknbil]

Are you using html entities for the characters?

1/2 = ½
3/4 = ¾
£ = £

[catpet]

Hi there Bill

I am in the uk and I dont understand all this encoding, you are right, it is a visual thing as I have backed up the database on the site and it still looks the same as though they are there but they are not, when they used to be. Any help would be appreciated as I am a total novice and getting hold of my site builder and host is proving difficult since he told me all settings were as should be that end so it is obviously my end like you said.

[catpet]

Hi Rocknbil

Thank you for that but I have never had to use it in HTML coding they are still there but I just cannot see them :o)

[rocknbil]

Well bill is correct, the character encoding of the document or browser will display or NOT display those special characters accordingly. Even if you get it to display correctly for you, what about other users out there, can you predict they are going to interpret these characters correctly?

The way to ensure everyone can see these is to use entities for the special characters. Google for HTML entities, there's a whole list of them.