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Freespirit-ST
Known Participant
August 12, 2020
Answered

Symbols for Copyright and Registered Trademarks Display Incorrectly in Chrome

  • August 12, 2020
  • 4 replies
  • 983 views

I am using RoboHelp 2019 Classic, and a long-time RoboHelp user.  We had a similar problem before with tic marks and quotes, but this time it's Copyright and Registered Trademark symbols. It appears to be happening only when help gets launched from our company's web application in Chrome. Issue is that direct display of the topic from output or File Explorer is fine, but when launched and displayed from within our application it has the dreaded A^ before the symbol.

I do see that in the HTML there is a RoboHelp tag surrounding the symbol - 

<?rh-symbol_start name="Registered" ?>®<?rh-symbol_end ?>

So the symbol appears OK in the project and output - but just NOT from our application.

I also tried using the HTML codes, both the number and entity, of "&#174;"  and "&reg;" for registered, within the RH tag.  But these get automatically resolved into the symbols.  And then still display wrong in the application.

 

I have seen other posts similar to this issue, but different.  Both of us tech writers have been experimenting, including removing the RH tag for symbols,  but get same result.

 

Please help! If we knew what caused this as related to our application's coding, we can ask our developers. And the topics have the usual references to charset=utf-8 in the HTML.  (We didn't remove any standard HTML before the <body> of the topic. )

 

We would appreciate any solutions or ideas to try. 

Thanks so much

Susan Tabnik

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Jeff_Coatsworth

Ok since it's only happening when launched from the app, then Amber's idea sounds like it's correct - the launch from the app is changing the encoding, so it [the browser] doesn't know what to do with the unicode for those symbols. Time to check with the developers!

4 replies

Jeff_Coatsworth
Community Expert
Jeff_CoatsworthCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
August 13, 2020

Ok since it's only happening when launched from the app, then Amber's idea sounds like it's correct - the launch from the app is changing the encoding, so it [the browser] doesn't know what to do with the unicode for those symbols. Time to check with the developers!

F
Freespirit-STAuthor
Known Participant
August 13, 2020

Thank you!  We will do that.  We are close to putting out a new release of our software, so we may have to go with our temporary solution. Then bug the developers after release.

I do like to know what is actually happening to cause these things.  So it is helpful for me to know that I can't do anything in RH for this particular thing with our application in Chrome.

Susan

A
Community Expert
AmebrCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 13, 2020

Given it works fine except when launched from the application, it sounds like the application might be changing the encoding to ANSI. 

 

If you change your default browser to IE and launch the help from the application, does the help open in IE? And does it then display the weird character? If so, that would suggest that it's the application changing something.

F
Freespirit-STAuthor
Known Participant
August 13, 2020

Yes. It works fine in IE from the application, symbol displays correctly. Just not in Chrome.  Any ideas of what in Chrome could be doing this or what we could code that would counteract Chrome?

See above about temporary solution of inserting a GIF of the symbol instead of the actual symbol.

Jeff_Coatsworth
Community Expert
Jeff_CoatsworthCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 12, 2020

And opening it in Chrome inside your application and outside of it makes no difference? (just trying to narrow down where the problem occurs)

F
Freespirit-STAuthor
Known Participant
August 13, 2020

Opening it outside of the application (stand-alone) displays correctly.  So, yes - the problem occurs when launched from the application only.  And I don't know what in the application is doing this.  And if there is anything I can change in the topic HTML that code display correctly despite the application.

The other tech writer that works with me has temporarily resolved this by inserting a GIF of the symbol, instead of the symbol itself.  That may be our only solution here.

 

Jeff_Coatsworth
Community Expert
Jeff_CoatsworthCommunity Expert
Community Expert
August 12, 2020

So it's a display issue only when using Chrome - not any other browsers?

F
Freespirit-STAuthor
Known Participant
August 12, 2020

Correct.  When I open in IE browser, symbols are displayed correctly for Copyright and Registered trademark

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