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Email systems don't handle non-ASCII characters well. Even web-based XML parsers have problems with > greater-than and < less-than signs.
Today's sophisticated email programs often function as word processors. They can automatically change straight "double quotes" into different beginning/ending double quotes; Microsoft Word is notorious for this. Word also non-helpfully transforms 1/2 and 1/4 (one-half and one-fourth) to single characters. This is a big problem in trading recipes over email.
Many non-serif fonts still don't display l (lower-case letter L) and 1 (number one) and I (upper-case letter i) in a format easily distinguishable to a human eye .
This problem is not necessarily new. For instance, Washington DC doesn't have a J street because, in the early maps for the city plan, the letters I and J looked nearly identical and the founders thought it would be confusing for people. (source: a National Parks expert on the DC city layout, at a talk I attended last year.)
The SCA College of Heralds have worked out a standard for writing foreign and special characters in email that accommodates names for a lot of Roman-based alphabetic characters. It's worth looking at for anyone who needs to share non-standard character information.
Anyone have other references they have found helpful?
Today's sophisticated email programs often function as word processors. They can automatically change straight "double quotes" into different beginning/ending double quotes; Microsoft Word is notorious for this. Word also non-helpfully transforms 1/2 and 1/4 (one-half and one-fourth) to single characters. This is a big problem in trading recipes over email.
This problem is not necessarily new. For instance, Washington DC doesn't have a J street because, in the early maps for the city plan, the letters I and J looked nearly identical and the founders thought it would be confusing for people. (source: a National Parks expert on the DC city layout, at a talk I attended last year.)
The SCA College of Heralds have worked out a standard for writing foreign and special characters in email that accommodates names for a lot of Roman-based alphabetic characters. It's worth looking at for anyone who needs to share non-standard character information.
Anyone have other references they have found helpful?
