Help please with character sets

Question

Hi,
I use GL CS2 just 4 times a year or so and that's why I'm not very good with it I suppose. Each time I have to relearn what I should be able to remember (something to do with advanced age I think).
I create a page of "newsletter" text, upload to the site then see that I have strange characters instead of " (quotes) - (dash) and so on. I'm sure the answer is in the way I have my Encoding set because I had it all working beautifully for the December issue but in March it's all gone whacky again.
Could someone please explain in short words to this numpty just what I should have these settings set to (and "why" if that won't confuse me more than I am already)?
I've been through the FAQ and done a search without succes so I turn now to the knowledgable who use this more often than I. Any help would be appreciated - thanks.
David

Answer 1

Hi David,<br /><br /> >>Len, how did you read the headers in your post? Is it likely that it <br />could change on the server without me knowing?<<<br /><br />There are a variety of Firefox addons that allow you to display the <br />response header from a server, such as LiveHTTPHeaders, but it is also <br />one of the dozens of things that the Web Developer addon supplies (which <br />is what I used).<br /><br />As to could it change, only if the httpd.conf file (or Apache2.conf for <br />Apache2) is changed on the server by adding an AddDefaultCharset line or <br />an AddCharset Line  to the <Ifmodule mod_mine.c> of the conf file.<br /><br />Here is the relevant section with Apache comments:<br /><br /><IfModule mod_mime.c><br />     #<br />     # Specify a default charset for all pages sent out. This is<br />     # always a good idea and opens the door for future internationalisation<br />     # of your web site, should you ever want it. Specifying it as<br />     # a default does little harm; as the standard dictates that a page<br />     # is in iso-8859-1 (latin1) unless specified otherwise i.e. you<br />     # are merely stating the obvious. There are also some security<br />     # reasons in browsers, related to javascript and URL parsing<br />     # which encourage you to always set a default char set.<br />     #<br />     #AddDefaultCharset ISO-8859-1<br /><br />Now, provided there is also an entry of AddCharset UTF-8, if your page <br />states UTF-8 then the server shouldn't overide that, even if the default <br />charset is set.