ASCII character problems

[Edw. Peach]

My PC is a year old, with the Windows XP pro OS. I have a number of
strange problems with software, non-Microsoft, and was wondering if
there is anything in the Windows that could be causing these.

Besides my MS Office products (Word, Excel, Access), I use a few extra
word processing programs. One is called Atlantis. In this program, I
am unable to add ascii characters using the ALT + 0xxx ascii code
entered on the numerical entry pad (like 0169 as ©, 0162 as ¢, etc.)
and also, when I have the SHIFT key down, the backspace does not work.
I've checked with the software people and I am supposed to be able to
do both of these actions with their software. I double checked and
made sure that combination, Shift + Backspace, is not linked to any
special characters.

Also, with my e-mail program, Eudora, I cannot enter ascii characters
either, and when I write in NotePad and copy/paste, it automatically
enters it as double spaced. I've posted in Eudora groups and that is
not supposed to be, either.

Are there any settings or feature in Windows XP that would have
anything to do with this? Any speculation on why this is happening?
I use my computer a lot, am very comfortable on it, but am by no means
a 'power user.' I don't modify any of my programs.

Thanks in advance if anybody has some suggestions. Please post all
responses to this group.

 

[Mark]

My PC is a year old, with the Windows XP pro OS. I have a number of
strange problems with software, non-Microsoft, and was wondering if
there is anything in the Windows that could be causing these.

Besides my MS Office products (Word, Excel, Access), I use a few extra
word processing programs. One is called Atlantis. In this program, I
am unable to add ascii characters using the ALT + 0xxx ascii code
entered on the numerical entry pad (like 0169 as ©, 0162 as ¢, etc.)
and also, when I have the SHIFT key down, the backspace does not work.
I've checked with the software people and I am supposed to be able to
do both of these actions with their software. I double checked and
made sure that combination, Shift + Backspace, is not linked to any
special characters.

Also, with my e-mail program, Eudora, I cannot enter ascii characters
either, and when I write in NotePad and copy/paste, it automatically
enters it as double spaced. I've posted in Eudora groups and that is
not supposed to be, either.

Are there any settings or feature in Windows XP that would have
anything to do with this? Any speculation on why this is happening?
I use my computer a lot, am very comfortable on it, but am by no means
a 'power user.' I don't modify any of my programs.

Thanks in advance if anybody has some suggestions. Please post all
responses to this group.

Your statement "when I have the SHIFT key down, the backspace does not
work." tells me that your keyboard is suspect. The numlock must be ON in
order to type the ascii character codes. Try another keyboard.

 

[grdog]

Your statement "when I have the SHIFT key down, the backspace does not
work." tells me that your keyboard is suspect. The numlock must be ON in
order to type the ascii character codes. Try another keyboard.

Going out on a limb here. My understanding is that using
Alt+0xxx for alternate symbols is connecting to microsoft
word not ASCII. Alt+xxx is using the ASCII codeing your ¢ is
Alt+155, or at lease it is on my keyboard. I have no idea
about your problems with the shift+backspace and perhaps
that is a keyboard problem, but my alternate characters work
without numlock ON. So give it a try without the ' 0' and
see if that will give you what you want..

 

[Mark]

Going out on a limb here. My understanding is that using
Alt+0xxx for alternate symbols is connecting to Microsoft
word not ASCII. Alt+xxx is using the ASCII coding your ¢ is
Alt+155, or at lease it is on my keyboard. I have no idea
about your problems with the shift+backspace and perhaps
that is a keyboard problem, but my alternate characters work
without numlock ON. So give it a try without the ' 0' and
see if that will give you what you want..

The alternate character set can be accessed (typed) using the number
pad. The numlock must be ON in order to use the "number" keys. Otherwise
they act like arrows, pageup, pagedown, home etc. Microsoft Word
displays the fonts as bitmaps the character set is embedded in the
document itself (thus the large header, similar to RTF docs). Opening a
Word doc using a hex editor reveals the document properties, fonts,
tables etc., as well as the plain text.

Open up Notepad in Windows or "Edit.com" in DOS mode and type Alt + 0169
(0,1,6,9 keys with the Alt key down). The copyright symbol should
appear. You don't need MS Word installed to use it. It also depends on
whether you type a zero with the number (e.g., 0169 = © vs 169 = _ )

I have used the alt+nnn trick for years when creating batch files with
windows.


(c: