# Portuguese characters not showing properly



## CMagalha (Mar 16, 2017)

I have this simple webpage that I built from scratch using an "old school" html editor, as I have being doing for a few years.

However, after uploading it to a space provider, the portuguese characters, like " ç ", " ó ", " õ " and others are shown as a blue losangle with a question mark inside. The webpage starts with:

*<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">

*

I tried Chrome, Opera, I.Explorer, Firefox. I have being doing this for quite some time and I usually use an old page as template, in such way that all pages start with the statements above. No problems at all in the past.

Can't find any specific instructions on how to cope with this.

I did reinstall my Windows 7 Ultimate a few weeks ago due to several errors caused probably by electric failures in my region.
Attached is an image from a section of the page, showing the characters displayed and the correct ones (black background).

Any input will be appreciated.

Thank you


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## colinsp (Sep 5, 2007)

A couple of things to try are switching to HTML 5 by using this as your doctype:


```
<!DOCTYPE html>
```
Also try changing the font that you use and ensure that it has your Portuguese characters available.


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## JiminSA (Dec 15, 2011)

You might also try an htnl tag specifying your language ...

```

```
As an absolute last resort, you could substitute Portuguese characters on your page with their special characters equivalent:
À
À
à
à
Á
Á
á
á
Â
Â
â
â
Ã
Ã
ã
ã
Ç
Ç
ç
ç
È
È
è
è
É
É
é
é
Ê
Ê
ê
ê
Ì
Ì
ì
ì
Í
Í
í
í
Ï
Ï
ï
ï
Ò
Ò
ò
ò
Ó
Ó
ó
ó
Õ
Õ
õ
õ
Ù
Ù
ù
ù
Ú
Ú
ú
ú
Ü
Ü
ü
ü
ª
ª
º
º


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## CMagalha (Mar 16, 2017)

Thank you.

In fact, I already tried HTML 5, and I do have fonts that support portuguese.
Word and Excel work perfectly here, as well as other software.

I am guessing the problem could be related to a "macro" condition, maybe related to the re-installation of Windows, but cannot figure out what.

Thanks anyway.


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## Ent (Apr 11, 2009)

Another thing to check is character encodings.
Make sure that you're using a sufficient encoding (I recommend UTF-8) and say what it is at the start of the document.
See this: https://www.w3schools.com/html/html_charset.asp


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## CMagalha (Mar 16, 2017)

Thank you, Josiah

I changed the META to UTF-8, but it did not work.

However, if I ask FileZila to EDIT the file FROM the server, it comes out perfect. 

Before and after this change. I think that something is getting corrupted in the process of retreving the file.

Need more work on this.


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## JiminSA (Dec 15, 2011)

I did a little research and discovered a possible reason/bug in using the UTF-8 declaration (here). Try using iso-8859-1, instead ...


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## CMagalha (Mar 16, 2017)

Thank you !

I tried, but the problem still there.

I will keep trying.


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## JiminSA (Dec 15, 2011)

Exasperating


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## CMagalha (Mar 16, 2017)

I agree 
several days on this, despite using theoreticaly the same statements as before


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## CMagalha (Mar 16, 2017)

============
It finally worked.
============

Using a free web hosting service, I uploaded the HTML file and a small GIF that is used as background image. Flawless.

Question now is: whats are the differences between this free service ( awardspace.com ) and another free web hosting provider ( 000webhost.com ). I have a domain, "carcereiro.site" that is using space at this server.


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## etaf (Oct 2, 2003)

i have reomoved the link, as WOT was reporting as a possible virus - 
maybe the WOT is incorrect
also we do not allow those types of links on our forum , please refrain from posting please


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## CMagalha (Mar 16, 2017)

No virus.
Just a regular website page.


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