Why do I get incorrect symbols in Entourage?

[jkaiser]

I'm sure this is really basic. Why, when I get a reply to my e-mails,
are the quotation marks and other characters displayed as different
symbols (percent sign, etc.) than those I originally used? Am I using
the wrong font, or is this a translation problem when I e-mail from
Mac to PC? And what can I do to correct the problem?

Thanks.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I'm sure this is really basic. Why, when I get a reply to my e-mails,
are the quotation marks and other characters displayed as different
symbols (percent sign, etc.) than those I originally used? Am I using
the wrong font, or is this a translation problem when I e-mail from
Mac to PC? And what can I do to correct the problem?

It's usually a matter of encoding setting for the e-mails. Different
platforms (and clients) use different encoding formats. Most of the
time, the e-mail client behaves properly and the headers have the proper
encoding information that Entourage can use to properly display the
message.
From time to time, the other e-mail client doesn't write the header in a
format Entourage can understand and some of the characters in the text
are messed up.
Sometimes, the app uses an encoding format Entourage simply doesn't know
and the app then has to guess what the encoding should be like.

Corentin