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mkocik11
Known Participant
June 10, 2016
Question

Prevent FM from converting hex characters?

  • June 10, 2016
  • 2 replies
  • 725 views

Is there any way to prevent FrameMaker from replacing the hex characters that I enter with the actual symbol?

For example, I enter (in code view), √ save, and then close. When I go back into the file and look in code view (or even if I switch between WYSIWYG and Code views), Frame replaces the hex entry with the actual square-root symbol. This is causing problems when I try to output to WebHelp or CHM -- the square root is replaced with a question mark. This also happens with lowercase sigma symbols and pretty much any other symbol, and even happens when I use Frame's Hex Input utility. PDF outputs OK though.

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    L
    Lynne A. Price
    Inspiring
    June 16, 2016

    Mike,

    1) FrameMaker is not a plain text editor. When you open an XML document, FrameMaker interprets the XML markup according to the definition of XML. As you've noticed, it doesn't matter whether you enter a data character directly or through a character reference; the interpretation is the same.

    2) Characters that are not defined in the font you are using may display as question marks. Make sure these characters are available in the fonts you are using with WebHelp and CHM.

         --Lynne

    M
    mkocik11Author
    Known Participant
    June 16, 2016

    The CSS is set up to use Arial throughout, so I know Arial can handle the character (square root).

    Anyway, I published just the topic that had the special character to CHM/WebHelp, and it came out fine. However, when I publish the entire ditamap, that's when the question marks appear.

    After doing a file comparison, the individual topic publish uses charset UTF-8 while the map-published version uses iso-8859-1.

    My guess is that's the culprit.

    P
    Adobe Employee
    Playful_work1549
    Adobe Employee
    June 20, 2016

    Publishing via the ditamap too brought the sq root character correctly for us - in CHM and WH both.

    Please try changing the encoding of your ditamap:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

    P
    Adobe Employee
    Playful_work1549
    Adobe Employee
    June 15, 2016

    Hi Mike,

    We tried it on English for a simple dita xml file - it seems to work OK for CHM and Webhelp output on English locale on Win10. The square root sign appears correctly. It be something to do with the default fonts of the system? Which locale are you on?

    This seems system specific. Pls try with some other system too if you get the same issue.

    M
    mkocik11Author
    Known Participant
    June 16, 2016

    English (US) locale. Windows 7 Enterprise, SP1

    FrameMaker 11

    Unfortunately, I can't try it on another system because we are all operating with the same versions.

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