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General discussion

HTML Tag ?

Jan 27, 2008 10:08AM PST

I just need some help in identifying this "tag". I'm going to "paste" a portion of a recipe that I printed off the web recently. It contains a strange "character" that I have seen before on the web. I don't know what it is. I thought maybe it was an HTML tag. It's a capital A with a little arrowhead on top. I don't even know how anyone would type that on a standard keyboard. But here's the paste. There's 4 of these A's in the paste.

For brownies
2 sticks (

Discussion is locked

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Ignore it
Jan 28, 2008 7:23PM PST

I'd say it's nothing - and anything else makes no sense - how much do 2 sticks of butter weigh?

However, this is a font issue, not an HTML tag - HTML tags are inside the code and have those triangle brackets around them ( < and &gtWink

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Strange
Jan 28, 2008 10:39PM PST

I am finding this strange, when I look at the source code for this page, I don't see anything associated to those characters.

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Re: character set problems
Jan 28, 2008 10:44PM PST

For a better analysis, we need:
1. The webpage url
2. The settings of View>Coding in your Internet Explorer

Can you tell them?


Kees

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Here's URL
Jan 28, 2008 11:26PM PST

Hey Guys ! Thanks for your response.

The URL is http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/10/peanut-butter-brownies/

My Internet Explorer "View" is set to View>encoding> - and then there are two things checked - "Western European(ISO)" and "Left to Right Document".

This is no big deal - I made the recipe and just read it as if those A's weren't there - and it turned out OK. But, it just bugs me trying to figure out what they are and how they got there - I don't think you can even type them like that. and, Andrea - to answer your question - two sticks of butter weigh 1/2 pound.

So, if anyone could solve the mystery we would all be a little smarter and it would be one less thing we'd have to think about.
Thanks for your help - all of you - Cliff

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Re: problem with the site
Jan 28, 2008 11:39PM PST

The page header says it's Unicode. And then IE doesn't interpret it like that. So apparently it isn't proper Unicode.
Such happens if the webmaster uses the wrong tools or uses the right tools the wrong way. Especially if he copies and pastes himself from some source that might be wrong itself to start with.

Nothing you can do about it. It's the page that's wrong. Contact the webmaster and let him correct it.

Kees

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Thanks Kees
Jan 29, 2008 1:51AM PST

OK - Thanks Kees for your input. There's so much that baffles me about computers I just thought this was one more thing that everyone understood but me. Cliff

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Special ASCII Character
Feb 13, 2008 1:52AM PST

Looks like a special extended ASCII character. You can type it by holding down ALT and 142

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an idea re: fractions
Sep 25, 2010 7:26AM PDT

How fun to have a question, google it, and find others had the same question.

I noticed that the strange A with the mark on top preceded fractions that were transformed into a smaller character ( i.e. 1/2 vs 3/4--but then of course it doesn't do it as I'm typing this . . .) So perhaps it doesn't have anything to do with the actual amount in the recipe. I've found it in a number of recipes and was hesitant to trust them but looks as though the character can be ignored.

Molly