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OE can't edit HTML source of UTF-8 European messages

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Michel Merlin

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Jan 16, 2007, 5:35:20 PM1/16/07
to
OE (Outlook Express) can't edit HTML source of UTF-8 European messages
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
(2 characters get crippled around each accentuated character when you switch back from Source pane to Edit pane).

This error was hard to identify because it apparently happens:

- only on special characters (hence never in regular English text)
- only in Unicode (UTF-8): I coudn't reproduce it in charset="us-ascii", or in Western European (ISO-8859-1), or in Western European (WINDOWS-1252), or in Latin 9 (iso-8859-15)
- only when switching back from Source pane to Edit pane (hence only if you save or send the message *AFTER* you went and viewed the HTML Source), hence:
--- only in HTML
--- only if you view the HTML SOURCE of the message (hence the error does NOT happen if you edit the message in the Edit pane, yet if you open the Source pane, it happens EVEN IF YOU DON'T EDIT the message)

I would like to know if some others can avoid this error (I guess none hopes MS will some day fix that bug and recognize who helped find it). To show it better, I post hereafter the same message twice:

- both in HTML and with special characters:
« À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné à Françoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »
- one in Latin 9
- one in UTF-8

I plan to then:

- reply to the UTF-8 (remaining in UTF-8) with editing it IN WYSIWYG (hence SANS opening the Source pane and switch back)
- reply to that 1st reply (still in UTF-8) with editing it IN SOURCE (hence WITH opening the Source pane and switch back)

Thanks to the ones who would have a solution, or at least who could add useful further tests.

Versailles, Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:35:20 +0100

Michel Merlin

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Jan 16, 2007, 5:47:25 PM1/16/07
to
Latin 9 (iso-8859-15) « À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné à Françoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »
 
Versailles, Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:47:25 +0100
----- Parent Message (links are clickable)-----
Posted: Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:35:20 +0100 (22:35:20 GMT)
 
OE (Outlook Express) can't edit HTML source of UTF-8 European messages
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
.........

Michel Merlin

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Jan 16, 2007, 5:59:30 PM1/16/07
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Unicode (UTF-8) « À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné à Françoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »
 
Versailles, Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:59:30 +0100
----- Parent Message (links are clickable)-----

Michel Merlin

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Jan 16, 2007, 6:06:45 PM1/16/07
to
Unicode (UTF-8) « À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné à Françoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »
 
Versailles, Wed 17 Jan 2007 00:06:45 +0100
----- Parent Message (links are clickable)-----

Michel Merlin

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Jan 16, 2007, 6:25:45 PM1/16/07
to
Reply to UTF-8 in UTF-8 SANS opening Source pane « À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné à Françoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »
 
Versailles, Wed 17 Jan 2007 00:25:45 +0100
----- Parent Message (links are clickable)-----
Posted: Wed 17 Jan 2007 00:06:45 +0100 (Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:06:45 GMT)
Content-Type: text/html;
   charset="utf-8"
 
Unicode (UTF-8) « À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné à Françoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »
 
Versailles, Wed 17 Jan 2007 00:06:45 +0100
----- Parent Message (links are clickable)-----
Posted: Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:47:25 +0100 (22:47:25 GMT)
Content-Type: text/html;
   charset="iso-8859-15"
 
Latin 9 (iso-8859-15) « À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné à Françoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »
 
Versailles, Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:47:25 +0100
----- Parent Message (links are clickable)-----
Posted: Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:35:20 +0100 (22:35:20 GMT)
Content-Type: text/plain;
   charset="iso-8859-15"

Michel Merlin

unread,
Jan 16, 2007, 6:45:30 PM1/16/07
to
Reply to UTF-8 in UTF-8 WITH opening Source pane ? ? CURA?AO, ?ric n'a donn? ? Fran?oise Spa?mann que 1?+1?+$1?5% ?
 
Notice the crippling all over the body, Subject, TITLE, as soon as special characters are present (French accentuated characters, Euro Symbol...).
 
Versailles, Wed 17 Jan 2007 00:45:30 +0100
----- Parent Message (links are clickable)-----
Posted: Wed 17 Jan 2007 00:25:45 +0100 (Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:25:45 GMT)
Content-Type: text/html;
   charset="utf-8"
 
Reply to UTF-8 in UTF-8 SANS opening Source pane ? ? CURA?AO, ?ric n'a donn? ? Fran?oise Spa?mann que 1?+1?+$1?5% ?
 
Versailles, Wed 17 Jan 2007 00:25:45 +0100
----- Parent Message (links are clickable)-----
Posted: Wed 17 Jan 2007 00:06:45 +0100 (Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:06:45 GMT)
Content-Type: text/html;
   charset="utf-8"
 
Unicode (UTF-8) ? ? CURA?AO, ?ric n'a donn? ? Fran?oise Spa?mann que 1?+1?+$1?5% ?
 
Versailles, Wed 17 Jan 2007 00:06:45 +0100
----- Parent Message (links are clickable)-----
Posted: Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:47:25 +0100 (22:47:25 GMT)
Content-Type: text/html;
   charset="iso-8859-15"
 
Latin 9 (iso-8859-15) ? ? CURA?AO, ?ric n'a donn? ? Fran?oise Spa?mann que 1?+1?+$1?5% ?
 
Versailles, Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:47:25 +0100

Jim Pickering AT

unread,
Jan 16, 2007, 9:51:29 PM1/16/07
to
Michel:

To understand what may be happening, I'd suggest you review this article:
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2005/03/08/389527.aspx
--
Jim Pickering, MVP/Windows Mail applications
Please reply ONLY to newsgroup.

"Michel Merlin" <michel...@laposte.net> wrote in message
news:%236j0phc...@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...


Reply to UTF-8 in UTF-8 WITH opening Source pane ? ? CURA?AO, ?ric n'a donn?

? Fran?oise Spa?mann que 1?+1?+$1?5% ?Reply to UTF-8 in UTF-8 WITH opening

Michel Merlin

unread,
Jan 17, 2007, 5:37:25 AM1/17/07
to
Thanks Jim for your help, however the article you point is mostly about the problems that were plaguing millions people up to W98SE (Windows 98 Second Edition) with DOS ("OEM") and Windows ("ANSI") "code pages". On code pages, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page (old as well). These problems (e.g. the one with the file named "ç" then "Ç" then "€") have apparently disappeared when upgrading from W98SE to W2K.

I don't think this is the problem here (albeit I can never be sure), since I can reproduce it with UTF only, not with ASCII, ANSI, ISO charsets (since we are in Windows and in 2007 I didn't try DOS code pages).

Thanks anyway for helping, this is annoying and hard to sort out, so various leads are needed.

I restored hereafter all the parent messages in Plain Text *from their (PT or HTML) originals*, so each alterations seen here are actually in the alleged message (so to make as clear as possible this rather intricate issue).

Versailles, Wed 17 Jan 2007 11:37:25 +0100


----- Parent Message (links are clickable)-----

From: "Jim Pickering" <jimp (AT) mvps.org>
Newsgroup: news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlookexpress.general
Message: news://msnews.microsoft.com/625B648E-D9E5-4804...@microsoft.com
Sent: Tue 16 Jan 2007 18:51:29 -0800 (Wed 17 Jan 2007 02:51:29 GMT)
Subject: Re: Reply to UTF-8 in UTF-8 WITH opening Source pane « À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné àFrançoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="Utf-8";
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Michel:

To understand what may be happening, I'd suggest you review this article:
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2005/03/08/389527.aspx
--
Jim Pickering, MVP/Windows Mail applications
Please reply ONLY to newsgroup.

----- Parent Message (links are clickable)-----
From: Michel Merlin <michel...@laposte.net>

Newsgroup: news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlookexpress.general
Message: news://msnews.microsoft.com/%236j0phc...@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl
Sent: Wed 17 Jan 2007 00:45:30 +0100 (Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:45:30 GMT)
Subject: Reply to UTF-8 in UTF-8 WITH opening Source pane « À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné à Françoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Reply to UTF-8 in UTF-8 WITH opening Source pane ? ? CURA?AO, ?ric n'a donn? ? Fran?oise Spa?mann que 1?+1?+$1?5% ?

Notice the crippling all over the body, Subject, TITLE, as soon as special characters are present (French accentuated characters, Euro Symbol...).

Versailles, Wed 17 Jan 2007 00:45:30 +0100


----- Parent Message (links are clickable)-----
From: Michel Merlin <michel...@laposte.net>

Newsgroup: news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlookexpress.general
Message: news://msnews.microsoft.com/eTcknWcO...@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl
Subject: Reply to UTF-8 in UTF-8 SANS opening Source pane « À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné à Françoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »


Posted: Wed 17 Jan 2007 00:25:45 +0100 (Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:25:45 GMT)
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="utf-8"

Reply to UTF-8 in UTF-8 SANS opening Source pane « À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné à Françoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »

Versailles, Wed 17 Jan 2007 00:25:45 +0100


----- Parent Message (links are clickable)-----
From: Michel Merlin <michel...@laposte.net>

Newsgroup: news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlookexpress.general
Message: news://msnews.microsoft.com/eFCJJMc...@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl
Subject: Unicode (UTF-8) « À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné à Françoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »


Posted: Wed 17 Jan 2007 00:06:45 +0100 (Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:06:45 GMT)
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="utf-8"

Unicode (UTF-8) « À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné à Françoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »

Versailles, Wed 17 Jan 2007 00:06:45 +0100


----- Parent Message (links are clickable)-----
From: Michel Merlin <michel...@laposte.net>

Newsgroup: news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlookexpress.general
Message: news://msnews.microsoft.com/O2qhMBcO...@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl
Subject: Latin 9 (iso-8859-15) « À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné à Françoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »


Posted: Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:47:25 +0100 (22:47:25 GMT)
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="iso-8859-15"

Latin 9 (iso-8859-15) « À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné à Françoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »

Versailles, Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:47:25 +0100


----- Parent Message (links are clickable)-----
From: Michel Merlin <michel...@laposte.net>

Newsgroup: news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlookexpress.general
Message: news://msnews.microsoft.com/u0Sfc6bO...@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl
Subject: OE can't edit HTML source of UTF-8 European messages


Posted: Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:35:20 +0100 (22:35:20 GMT)
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-15"

Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Michel Merlin

unread,
Jan 17, 2007, 5:35:35 AM1/17/07
to
Thanks Jim for your help, however the article you point is mostly about the problems that were plaguing millions people up to W98SE (Windows 98 Second Edition) with DOS ("OEM") and Windows ("ANSI") "code pages". On code pages, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page (old as well). These problems (e.g. the one with the file named "ç" then "Ç" then "€") have apparently disappeared when upgrading from W98SE to W2K.

I don't think this is the problem here (albeit I can never be sure), since I can reproduce it with UTF only, not with ASCII, ANSI, ISO charsets (since we are in Windows and in 2007 I didn't try DOS code pages).

Thanks anyway for helping, this is annoying and hard to sort out, so various leads are needed.

I restored hereafter all the parent messages in Plain Text *from their (PT or HTML) originals*, so each alterations seen here are actually in the alleged message (so to make as clear as possible this rather intricate issue).

Versailles, Wed 17 Jan 2007 11:35:35 +0100


----- Parent Message (links are clickable)-----

From: "Jim Pickering" <jimp (AT) mvps.org>
Newsgroup: news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlookexpress.general
Message: news://msnews.microsoft.com/625B648E-D9E5-4804...@microsoft.com
Sent: Tue 16 Jan 2007 18:51:29 -0800 (Wed 17 Jan 2007 02:51:29 GMT)
Subject: Re: Reply to UTF-8 in UTF-8 WITH opening Source pane « À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné àFrançoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="Utf-8";
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Michel:

To understand what may be happening, I'd suggest you review this article:
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2005/03/08/389527.aspx
--
Jim Pickering, MVP/Windows Mail applications
Please reply ONLY to newsgroup.

----- Parent Message (links are clickable)-----
From: Michel Merlin <michel...@laposte.net>

Newsgroup: news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlookexpress.general
Message: news://msnews.microsoft.com/%236j0phc...@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl
Sent: Wed 17 Jan 2007 00:45:30 +0100 (Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:45:30 GMT)
Subject: Reply to UTF-8 in UTF-8 WITH opening Source pane « À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné à Françoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="utf-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Reply to UTF-8 in UTF-8 WITH opening Source pane ? ? CURA?AO, ?ric n'a donn? ? Fran?oise Spa?mann que 1?+1?+$1?5% ?

Notice the crippling all over the body, Subject, TITLE, as soon as special characters are present (French accentuated characters, Euro Symbol...).

Versailles, Wed 17 Jan 2007 00:45:30 +0100


----- Parent Message (links are clickable)-----
From: Michel Merlin <michel...@laposte.net>

Newsgroup: news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlookexpress.general
Message: news://msnews.microsoft.com/eTcknWcO...@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl

Subject: Reply to UTF-8 in UTF-8 SANS opening Source pane « À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné à Françoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »


Posted: Wed 17 Jan 2007 00:25:45 +0100 (Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:25:45 GMT)
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="utf-8"

Reply to UTF-8 in UTF-8 SANS opening Source pane « À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné à Françoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »

Versailles, Wed 17 Jan 2007 00:25:45 +0100


----- Parent Message (links are clickable)-----
From: Michel Merlin <michel...@laposte.net>

Newsgroup: news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlookexpress.general
Message: news://msnews.microsoft.com/eFCJJMc...@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl
Subject: Unicode (UTF-8) « À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné à Françoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »

Posted: Wed 17 Jan 2007 00:06:45 +0100 (Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:06:45 GMT)
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="utf-8"

Unicode (UTF-8) « À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné à Françoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »

Versailles, Wed 17 Jan 2007 00:06:45 +0100


----- Parent Message (links are clickable)-----
From: Michel Merlin <michel...@laposte.net>

Newsgroup: news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlookexpress.general
Message: news://msnews.microsoft.com/O2qhMBcO...@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl

Subject: Latin 9 (iso-8859-15) « À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné à Françoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »


Posted: Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:47:25 +0100 (22:47:25 GMT)
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="iso-8859-15"

Latin 9 (iso-8859-15) « À CURAÇAO, Éric n'a donné à Françoise Spaßmann que 1€+1£+$1±5% »

Versailles, Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:47:25 +0100


----- Parent Message (links are clickable)-----
From: Michel Merlin <michel...@laposte.net>

Newsgroup: news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlookexpress.general
Message: news://msnews.microsoft.com/u0Sfc6bO...@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl

Subject: OE can't edit HTML source of UTF-8 European messages


Posted: Tue 16 Jan 2007 23:35:20 +0100 (22:35:20 GMT)
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-15"

Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Michel Merlin

unread,
Jan 21, 2007, 12:29:45 PM1/21/07
to
Seeing that none replies, I added another explanation, as clear, short yet detailed as possible, using images of Message and of its HTML Source, before and after crippling by OE; see my message http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=450442&page=2#post3250318 posted on Sun 21 Jan 2007 16:39:10 GMT on Sitepoint. Thanks to anyone with a clue.

Versailles, Sun 21 Jan 2007 18:29:45 +0100


----- Parent Message (links are clickable)-----
From: "Michel Merlin" <michel...@laposte.net>
Newsgroup: news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.outlookexpress.general

Message: news://msnews.microsoft.com/u0Sfc6bO...@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl
Sent: Tue 16 Jan 2007 22:35:20 GMT
Subject: OE can't edit HTML source of UTF-8 European messages
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-15"

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