Tons of question marks?

Belle2Be · 02-20-2011, 02:09 PM

Has anyone seen this? I can't figure out why my book has tons of ? in little rectangle boxes all throughout the text? It doesn't have it on my computer, just in the Kindle, and it didn't have it for the first few pages, then it went to sleep and when it woke up it did. It also doesn't have it on other books that I've looked through?

HarryT · 02-20-2011, 02:24 PM

The question mark is displayed when the book contains a character that isn't present in the Kindle's font.

Belle2Be · 02-20-2011, 02:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

The question mark is displayed when the book contains a character that isn't present in the Kindle's font.

It's everywhere though, and not always in place of a character. It also just showed up mid book, it wasn't there when I started reading.

HarryT · 02-20-2011, 02:29 PM

I have absolutely no idea why it should suddenly appear, but soft hyphens are a pretty common cause. They can indeed be "everywhere".

Belle2Be · 02-20-2011, 02:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

I have absolutely no idea why it should suddenly appear, but soft hyphens are a pretty common cause. They can indeed be "everywhere".

I fixed it! It wasn't a soft hyphen, it would be before a sentence, before and after 1 word, after a regular hyphen or comma, in several places where there should've just been a space. Very weird

Thanks anyway!

Belle2Be · 02-20-2011, 02:41 PM

Nevermind, I didn't fix it, I only succeeded in taking out all the punctuation except periods.

DiapDealer · 02-20-2011, 02:51 PM

Sounds like a character encoding issue to me.

Belle2Be · 02-20-2011, 02:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Sounds like a character encoding issue to me.

I tried to fix it by converting and inputing character encoding, but it didn't help. Looks like my Kindle isn't recognizing " and ' in this book. Any ideas?

DiapDealer · 02-20-2011, 03:10 PM

I've seen issues if they're not your standard quotation characters - such as curly quotes or angled quotes. For those, you'd need to specify UTF-8 for your XHTML source's character encoding. Either that or use entity encoding -- “ ” ‘ ’ ... etc, in your source.

HarryT · 02-20-2011, 03:14 PM

Not recognising curly quotes is indeed a typical symptom of the conversion having used the wrong character encoding.

Belle2Be · 02-20-2011, 03:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I've seen issues if they're not your standard quotation characters - such as curly quotes or angled quotes. For those, you'd need to specify UTF-8 for your XHTML source's character encoding. Either that or use entity encoding -- “ ” ‘ ’ ... etc, in your source.

Ok sorry, can you explain that? I just did the CP#### that it says in the user manual of Calibre, and checked the transliteration box in Look and Feel, and that's what took out the ? and all the " ' . So I tried putting in UTF-8 in the Input Character Encoding and it didn't do anything. Then I tried Ascii and the ? went away but so did all the " ' . I'm not sure what those other letters are or where to put them?
ETA Ok, I googled and understand what Entity Coding is, but where do I input it?

mr ploppy · 02-20-2011, 03:26 PM

Assuming it is a mobi file, extract the html with mobiunpack, open that in notepad or similar and add this line between the two <head> tags:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />

Then use Mobicreator to put it back into a mobi.

Belle2Be · 02-20-2011, 04:02 PM

Alright well I give up. Thanks anyway, I'll just try to read it on my NC.

mr ploppy · 02-20-2011, 04:04 PM

It's one of those things that is easier to do than to explain. If you want to email it to me I could do it in about 15 seconds.

TenaciousBadger · 02-21-2011, 11:25 AM

usually, in my experience, the little square thing or other annoying characters that don't belong there, replace quotation marks and question marks or apostrophes.
i just export the document (or convert it) to a word/open office document where i perform a search and replace by selecting the irritant and replacing all with what's supposed to be there. (this, in the case where all ", ', or ? or etc are replaced by the same annoying character)

hope it makes sense

02-20-2011, 02:09 PM	#1
Belle2Be Peace, Love, and Books Posts: 355 Karma: 1242738 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: Kindle 3(3g), NookColor	Tons of question marks? Has anyone seen this? I can't figure out why my book has tons of ? in little rectangle boxes all throughout the text? It doesn't have it on my computer, just in the Kindle, and it didn't have it for the first few pages, then it went to sleep and when it woke up it did. It also doesn't have it on other books that I've looked through?

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02-20-2011, 02:24 PM	#2
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383043 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	The question mark is displayed when the book contains a character that isn't present in the Kindle's font.

02-20-2011, 02:29 PM	#4
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383043 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	I have absolutely no idea why it should suddenly appear, but soft hyphens are a pretty common cause. They can indeed be "everywhere".

02-20-2011, 02:41 PM	#6
Belle2Be Peace, Love, and Books Posts: 355 Karma: 1242738 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: Kindle 3(3g), NookColor	Nevermind, I didn't fix it, I only succeeded in taking out all the punctuation except periods.

02-20-2011, 02:51 PM	#7
DiapDealer Grand Sorcerer Posts: 27,552 Karma: 193191846 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD	Sounds like a character encoding issue to me.

02-20-2011, 03:10 PM	#9
DiapDealer Grand Sorcerer Posts: 27,552 Karma: 193191846 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD	I've seen issues if they're not your standard quotation characters - such as curly quotes or angled quotes. For those, you'd need to specify UTF-8 for your XHTML source's character encoding. Either that or use entity encoding -- “ ” ‘ ’ ... etc, in your source.

02-20-2011, 03:14 PM	#10
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383043 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	Not recognising curly quotes is indeed a typical symptom of the conversion having used the wrong character encoding.

02-20-2011, 03:26 PM	#12
mr ploppy Feral Underclass Posts: 3,622 Karma: 26821535 Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Yorkshire, tha noz Device: 2nd hand paperback	Assuming it is a mobi file, extract the html with mobiunpack, open that in notepad or similar and add this line between the two <head> tags: <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> Then use Mobicreator to put it back into a mobi.

02-20-2011, 04:02 PM	#13
Belle2Be Peace, Love, and Books Posts: 355 Karma: 1242738 Join Date: Sep 2010 Device: Kindle 3(3g), NookColor	Alright well I give up. Thanks anyway, I'll just try to read it on my NC.

02-20-2011, 04:04 PM	#14
mr ploppy Feral Underclass Posts: 3,622 Karma: 26821535 Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Yorkshire, tha noz Device: 2nd hand paperback	It's one of those things that is easier to do than to explain. If you want to email it to me I could do it in about 15 seconds.

02-21-2011, 11:25 AM	#15
TenaciousBadger Mrawr? Posts: 1,109 Karma: 15039064 Join Date: Aug 2010 Device: kindle 3 wifi	usually, in my experience, the little square thing or other annoying characters that don't belong there, replace quotation marks and question marks or apostrophes. i just export the document (or convert it) to a word/open office document where i perform a search and replace by selecting the irritant and replacing all with what's supposed to be there. (this, in the case where all ", ', or ? or etc are replaced by the same annoying character) hope it makes sense

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