Question:
We have trademark symbols sprinkled in our HTML Although MSIE 4.0 has no trouble with it, some browsers cannot interpret [ampersand]trade”. We try to replace them with the ASCII code of “[ampersand]#153;” but the InterDev environment seems to keep changing the code back to “[ampersand]trade”. Any way to keep this from happening?

Answer:

This looks like one of those “undocumented features” in the version of the FrontPage editor that comes with Visual InterDev 1. Fortunately, FrontPage 98  andthe similar editor used in the March preview of Visual InterDev 6 don’t change the ASCIIversion of the trademark character code. In fact, when you use Insert Symbol to enterthe trademark symbol, FP 98 inserts [ampersand]#153; instead of [ampersand]trade.

In the meantime, here are three suggestions to continue working without interference:

• Get FrontPage 98 and set it up as your default editor. Within VID 1, right-click on an HTML file, click Open With and click Add. You’ll probably find the editor in C:Program FilesMicrosoft FrontPageinfpeditor.exe or thereabouts.
• If you know that your target browsers support JavaScript, you could protect your trademarks (excuse the pun) by embedding the code as script. You’d put this code (view the source here) where you want the symbol to appear.
• If you are using Active Server Pages, you could use response.write "[ampersand]#153;" to shield your ASCII code from the FP for VID editor.

Please note that to avoid formatting problems on this ASP/HTML page, I’ve used [ampersand] where you should use the real “and” symbol.