extended characters
Meph
>a technical question
>
>i'm trying to figure out if it is possible to include extended ascii
>characters in a web page (as they are included in the attached table
>ascii2.gif - particularily #176, 240, 254 and 255)
The problem is that the extended characters depend from the font. The
table shows the 'ASCII IBM extended character set' which is used in DOS.
>the convention
> < &#---; >
... isn't needed
>which works to call characters from the standard ascii table, does not
>work for the extended table, instead you end up with IS0 entities
>(accented characters etc.)
You need a font tag which tells the browser that it should use a font
which supports this extended characters. The problem is that Windows
didn't have such a font. Alternative you can use a web font or let the
user download the font. If you have a IE 4.x (5) browser you can see
some samples at:
http://studenten.freepage.de/meph/ascii/other/ansi/ansi2html.htm
(The same system works with Netscape, if you found a TrueType font which
supports the extended IBM char.set.)
>i'm trying to access the characters that appear in DOS when you hold the
><alt> key and type a 3 digit reference number on the number pad
In DOS you have a standard font, but in Windows it depends from the
actual font.
>if anybody knows how or whether this is possible in a web environment,
>please let me know
If you found a free True Type font, it is possible to convert it to a web
font, which is automatic (temp.) installed from the browser. The problems
are: to found such a font, Netscape & Microsoft fonts are incompatible,
you need min. 2 programs to do the conversion, ...
I have given it up :(
Meph.
Ilmari Karonen
: You need a font tag which tells the browser that it should use a font
: which supports this extended characters. The problem is that Windows
Actually this should be handled by specifying a suitable charset in the
Content-Type header, which is properly included in the HTTP headers but
can[1] be specified in a META tag:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html;charset=ibm852">
I have no idea if that's the right codepage number - anyone care to
enlighten me?
The problem is that the support for this is limited at best. I suppose the
safest way would be to specify a font containing the desired characters
_in addition to_ specifying the proper charset. But that's mean you'd have
to try to guess the names of the fonts available to the viewer. :-(
The &#nnnn; entities refer to Unicode numbers - I suppose all the DOS
extended characters must have Unicode equivalents, but I have no idea what
the codes are. And the support for that is probably even more limited.
Anyway, none of them are US-ASCII characters, so this doesn't really
belong here.
[1] This may or may not work. Some browsers will redraw the screen if they
encounter such a tag. And don't even think about specifying any other type
than text/html! ;-)
--
Ilmari Karonen (il...@sci.fi) | Was at a bookstore today, [snip] and noticed
http://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/ | "Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 for Dummies"
Will fix broken HTML for food | . . . and thought "Yes". -- Jeff Vinocur