Just wondering if you can edit them out or if they are etched in stone?

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2000

Answers

E. Lee,

Can you edit them out?

They started with your one of your posts.

-- Anonymous, November 01, 2000

Connie:

You have asked concerning the letter B and little squares:

BE. Lee, Can you edit them out? They started with your one of your posts.B

You are absolutely correct in stating that this problem began with one of my post. I recognized it immediately but have thus far been completely unable to determine the cause. When I type a quotation mark or an apostrophe it appears in my document, before it is submitted to the forum as a normal quotation mark and an apostrophe. Then when I submit the document to the forum it appears as the letter B and a small square in every place where I typed a quotation mark or an apostrophe.

I cannot edit it out because I did nothing that I can determine that edited it in. The only things I can do for the moment is stop using quotation marks and indicate in some other way that I am either quoting someone else or the scriptures. If I need to us an apostrophe for any reason I will just have to find some other way express my words without the use of the apostrophe.

I promise you, Connie, that I will try to avoid those two very important literary devices until this particular problem is resolved. And that is the best that I can do. I know it is annoying for it really annoys me as well. But I just do not understand what is the cause of this problem and therefore do not know exactly what to do to solve it.

I have asked Duane if this problem might be in the server in some way. You have correctly observed that this problem began with one of my post in the PK thread.

I hope that my temporary measures will help.

Your Friend,

E. Lee Saffold

-- Anonymous, November 02, 2000

Dear E. Lee,

Thank you very much for your nice response. It really doesn't bother me that much; it's just that dratted proofreading course I took.

Aren't there some computer-GENIUS professionals on this forum who could help us out, especially since you are unhappy with it also?

Thanks, again, for your very kind response.

-- Anonymous, November 02, 2000

Connie:

The software here [recently upgraded] doesn't support smart quotes. So if you prepare your message in an application that uses them [like Word] and type in ' or " and paste into Lusenet, it will replace them with B or square.

Hope this helps.

Vince

-- Anonymous, November 12, 2000

A-a-h,Vince!

Our computer-Genius professional.

Thank you.

-- Anonymous, November 12, 2000

Vince:

I think you have without doubt identified the problem. I am using word and then pasting it into the lusenet to submit to the forum. I want to ask if you can recommend a solution? Qould it be helpful if I tried using html instead of merely pasting a word generated document?

I sincerely think that you can help with a solution and would greatly appreciate your advice. These squares and capital B are becoming a real nusiance. I am curious, however, as to why the problem has only recently occured? I have been writing in word and pasting in lusenet for over a year and only in the past two months has this problem appeared. I went back to look in the archives and I noticed that all of my previous post that originally did not have this problem now have all been changed so that they are also filled with squares and the letter B. It is strange to me. Is it possible that originally there was some form of protection against this that is no longer available?

In either case, I would like to resoplve the problem and I am confident that you can help. So I await your wise advice.

For Christ,

E. Lee Saffold

-- Anonymous, November 13, 2000

Vince,

I too use word on a regular basis to edit my posts, and would be thankful for a solution.

-- Anonymous, November 13, 2000

If that is the source of the problem, the solution seems easy. In fact, there are a couple.

(1) Write your "questions"/responses DIRECTLY in the little window provided when you click on "Contribute an answer", rather than writing them elsewhere first and then "pasting" them into that. For those who normally write fairly long pieces for the forum (like me and Lee Saffold), you don't have to stay on-line the whole time. You can go off-line while you are writing and then some on again to "submit." I do this quite often.

(2) If you must use an actual word processing programme for your writing, for example, if you want to work on your response over a period of time (I also do this quite often), you can use a different word processor that doesn't have this problem. Most of us have access to more than one. Windows 95 came with two bundled with it -- Notepad and WordPad. I think either of these would work. I know Notepad would since it saves files in an absolutely no frills "plain text" format (and WordPad also offers that option). These might not offer all the "bells and whistles" for editing and proofreading that Word does, but most of us managed without those at one time, and this would solve the problem of the "B"s and squares. (Personally, I still use a DOS version of WordStar for most of my writing, and then copy it to other programmes and other formats if I need to.)

There may also be a third possibility, though I can't check it out since I don't have Word. That is that there MAY be some way of turning off the feature that does the "smart" replacement of the "generic" apostrophes and quotation marks with the fancier ones. Perhaps someone knows, and if it is possible, can tell the rest how to do it.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2000

In the last sentence of my second paragraph (first main point), "some on again", should, of course, be "come on again" -- and that's a typo that even a very fancy WP with spelling checkers (and probably even grammar checkers) would not have caught. Sometimes the eye is more reliable than the machine, and I only have myself to blame for not re-reading it more carefully before sending.

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2000