That is an UTF-8 Byte Order Mark ( ). It will disappear if you select the correct encoding via View > Character Encoding > More Encodings > Unicode > UTF-8. The server sends the page as Western (ISO-6659-1) and that is what Firefox uses. What is set via a meta tag (text/html; charset=UTF-8) is always ignored if the server sends an content type via the response headers.

• http://www.w3.org/International/O-HTTP-charset#server
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_Order_Mark

Found link finally that explains how to fix this NotePad induced error:

[http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum11.../96.htm]

David

Wouldn't it be better to fix the code using another editor so the viewers don't have to readjust their browsers per the instructions you list? I appreciate your response! Thanks.

David

You will have to save the file in the editor with the Western encoding and upload that file again if you do not have access to the .htaccess file on the Apache server or do not want to change that. It is however always better to avoid having that BOM in the file and use an editor that doesn't insert it. You should make sure that all (HTML, CSS and JS) files have the same encoding to avoid further problems.

I pasted the code from Web Exp 3.0 into Crimson Editor and then selected Document --> encoding type --> UTF-8 w/o BOM and then saved it, but when I reopened it, it said it was in ASCII code not UTF-8. Would you happen to know what I did incorrectly? Thanks again. You've been very helpful.

David

If there is no BOM then the editor will choose its default encoding. Some editors scan the file and will notice Unicode characters (™) and switch the encoding or display an error message. If that isn't happening then you have to select the encoding yourself in the editor.

In WebExpresssions 3.0 there is a panel where you can choose the default encoding for your site. One choice is US/Western (ISO). Is that the ISO8859-1 encoding? Is that the favored encoding to use?

I've been told to stay away from UTF-8 with or without BOM by others.

I may have to save the screwed up pages as new pages to get the "encoding default" to "stick" correct or is there a way to change the encoding and resave without doing that? (That is a web expressions 3.0 question really)

I CAME UP WITH A SOLUTION below but if you have anything to add to the above about UTF-8 encoding being a poor choice, I'd love to hear your opinion. Thanks again for all your help!

Enjoy your day.

David

Thanks.

David

OK this works in Web Expressions 3.0: Open the document in W Exp 3.0 then: 1. Right click over document and select "Page Properties" 2. Click Language tab. 3. for HTML encoding choose: US/Western (ISO) 4. for "Reload of current document" put: <Automatic Encoding> 5. press OK. 6. Resave the webpage. 7. Reload to your website.

The gibberish is gone!

David

See my Web Expressions 3.0 solution above. Thanks. David