How can I prevent highlighted text with quotes from a browser from turning quotes into %u201C when using Movable Type Quickpost?

May 29, 2007 2:47 PM

When I highlight text on a webpage in Safari that contains quotes (") and then click on my Movable Type Quickpost link to include the text in the Quickpost body, the quotes in the highlighted text in the browser are turned into %u201C once the text is included in the body of the Quickpost in the pop up window. If I manually input the quotes directly into the body of the Quickpost window, the quotes do not turn into %u201C, it is only when I highlight text in a browser with quotes and then click on the Quickpost link do the quotes turn into %u201C. Does anyone know how I prevent highlighted text with quotes from a browser from turning quotes into %u201C when using Quickpost? I would appreciate any help or advice. Thanks.
posted by cg2 to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

I'm sure that's done deliberately, because in a lot of contexts quotes would be swallowed up and interpreted as HTML syntax rather than as target text (e.g. in an image "alt" tag body). I bet it does the same thing for angle brackets.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 3:34 PM on May 29, 2007

A workaround is to paste this text into a plaintext TextEdit (or any other text editor) document, and then paste it into the Movable Type Quickpost. This strips out any "rich" formatting.
posted by porn in the woods at 3:47 PM on May 29, 2007

This might not be a "rich" formatting issue.

Are you sure the quotes in the text you're highlighting are not, in fact, Unicode left double quotation marks as opposed to old-school ASCII double quotes?

Text originally derived from Microsoft Word, among others, often ends up with "smart" quotes silently substituted for ASCII ones. It's a PITA, and the only way to fix it that I know of is with find and replace.
posted by flabdablet at 5:19 PM on May 29, 2007

Yep, I work with the MT team, and QuickPost will do this if what you're seeing are smart/fancy quotes, instead of the standard plain ones you get when typing.

Is there a reason this is a problem? They should show up correctly once you publish the post. (Email me if you need more info.)
posted by anildash at 8:37 PM on May 29, 2007