Accented Chars in HTML Displayed as Question Marks in Black Diamonds
The issue of accented characters being displayed as question marks in black diamonds (�) in your browser usually stems from character encoding problems. Here are the most common causes and solutions:
1. Incorrect Character Encoding in the HTML Document
The browser needs to know the correct encoding to properly display accented characters. If the document’s encoding is not set correctly, the browser may misinterpret the characters, leading to incorrect display (such as black diamonds with question marks).
Make sure the HTML document specifies the correct encoding using a “<meta>” tag in the “<head>” section of the HTML file. The most common and recommended encoding is UTF-8, which supports a wide range of characters, including accented ones.Add the following line to your HTML document:
<meta charset="UTF-8">
This tells the browser to interpret the document using the UTF-8 encoding
2. The File Itself is Saved in the Wrong Encoding
The HTML file itself might be saved in an encoding other than UTF-8 (e.g., ISO-8859-1 or ANSI), causing the accented characters to be displayed incorrectly.
Ensure that the file is saved with UTF-8 encoding. Many text editors allow you to specify the file encoding when saving the document. For example:
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- In Notepad++: Go to “Encoding” → “Convert to UTF-8” and then save the file.
- In Visual Studio Code: Check the bottom-right corner for the file’s encoding and convert it to UTF-8 if necessary