This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Hierdie gesprek is in die argief. Vra asseblief 'n nuwe vraag as jy hulp nodig het.

Firefox is not displaying alt codes correctly, substituting a black diamond with a white question mark in their place.

  • 2 antwoorde
  • 35 hierdie probleem
  • 3 views
  • Laaste antwoord deur MTS52

MTS52
MTS52
more options

Alt codes (such as ® for "registered" and ™ for "trademark") are being displayed as a small black diamond with a white question mark inside of it. This has also started happening to more simple characters such as exclamation marks, dashes and apostrophes. Any ideas?

Alt codes (such as ® for "registered" and ™ for "trademark") are being displayed as a small black diamond with a white question mark inside of it. This has also started happening to more simple characters such as exclamation marks, dashes and apostrophes. Any ideas?

All Replies (2)

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

Does that also happens with those characters in your above post?

Make sure that the correct encoding (View > Character Encoding) is selected.

Press F10 or press and hold the Alt key down to bring up the "Menu Bar" temporarily.

MTS52
MTS52 Vraag-eienaar
more options

Thanks for your reply cor-el.

My posting actually included the alt code syntax, and is now rendered as the corresponding special character. I guess this isn't a surprise!

And no, it was rendered just fine. This morning when I went into the browser to see the problem, it was not mis-displaying as it had been...it had somehow changed and was behaving very nicely. That's all fine, but I'm a little bit wary of this FF browser functionality now...steady as she goes.

Also, I did check the (View > Character Encoding) you recommended, and after experimenting a bit discovered that using "Unicode (UTF-8)" made the wierd black diamond/white question mark character come back in all of the same places it was occuring...up until this morning. I've set my browser default to "Western (ISO-8859-1)" now, and everything is displaying as it should.

Thanks for your reply and suggestions. I hope others will learn from these experiences.