[virtual_ink]

Is it true that simple characters (single and double quotes, en dash, em dash, ellipsis, etc) will display differently on different e-readers?

I ask this as when previewing my epub's html files in Firefox, these characters display as bad code (eg: em dash = –, single quote = ‘, sq close = ’), however they display fine in ADE and on the iPad using iBooks.

For the sake of compatibility across the board, would it be best to convert all characters to their html code equivalent? Is this necessary process? What would be the best way to do it (I'm thinking a find-all/replace-all for each character would be one approach, but perhaps there is a better way).

NB: I am using IDC5.5 to export to epub, but I am guessing this question would apply to others using a different program for epub creation - correct me if I am wrong and I will add an ID to the thread title.