# Question: Why FA raped my quotation marks?



## Marie (May 18, 2009)

I've uploaded several stories to the internet before by using Microsoft Word. I read somewhere on FA that it was best to use .txt files when uploading to Fur Affinity. It took a while, but I went back and edited my story in Notepad, adding in the BBcode where necessary. I wanted to make sure I had no mistakes in formatting.

But when I uploaded it and went to skim over, I saw that FA chewed up my quotation marks and turned them into boxes, and I don't know why. When I went and looked at other people's stories, also uploaded as a .txt file, they still had their quotation marks in one piece.

How exactly am I supposed to upload stories as .txt files but keep my quotation marks as they're supposed to be?


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## ElizabethAlexandraMary (May 18, 2009)

I'm having exactly the same problem, as well as with accents. Perhaps you should try using one of these "converter" programs to reformat stories in such a way they have working [stuff] using the website code.


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## AshleyAshes (May 18, 2009)

They're two different quotation marks, that's why.  The fonts rendering it after uploading it don't include those marks.

Normally in say note pad more most other applications the quotation mark is "  Or U+0022 in almost every font set.

HOWEVER, word processing programs like MS Word use different quotations, two sets, one for the start and one for the end.  
"" These, which probably look the same on the forum but they are two different characters.  They are U+201C and U+201D.  As far as the computer is concerned, two entirely different characters than U+0022.  But not every font set HAS U+201C and U+201D so you get boxes instead.


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## Marie (May 18, 2009)

Oh! If that is the case, then I know how it happened... I originally saved my story as a word document, then went back and resaved as a .txt file.

I'm going to try going through and re-typing the quotation marks in notepad. (They do look different, I know what you're talking about.)


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## AshleyAshes (May 18, 2009)

I suggest you use word replace, it'll likely go a lot faster. 

I dunno what fonts don't have U+201C and U+201D but I do know that the windows System font lacks it.  I get boxes when I copy from MS Word to mIRC.


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## Marie (May 18, 2009)

Lol too late, I went through word by word

edit: It worked! I no longer have inattractive boxes~ Thanks AshleyAshes


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## Xipoid (May 18, 2009)

If you are just copy-pasting a word document's text into a text file, you can just change the encoding of the text file to UTF-8. That option is available when you go to Save As. It will the pull down menu marked "Encoding" which is generally beneath "Save as type" and "File name".


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## M. LeRenard (May 19, 2009)

And from now on, when typing on Microsoft Word, turn off 'smart quotes' (under autocorrect options).  Else it'll happen again.


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## Tanzenlicht (May 19, 2009)

Because they were asking for it.  Those dirty, slutty little 'smart quotes'.

Hoors!


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## yak (May 19, 2009)

Yes, smart quotes and UTF-8


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## Stratelier (May 20, 2009)

yak said:


> Yes, smart quotes and UTF-8



Can you add a manual str_replace() or the like for smart quotes?

Leave them to the fancy word processors.


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