Validation of document containing 'foreign' characters

**molendijk** · 01-10-2013, 10:17 PM

This validates:

Code:

<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title></title>
</head>
<body >
e
</body>
</html>

but this cannot be validated ('Sorry! This document cannot be checked'):

Code:

<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title></title>
</head>
<body >
é
</body>
</html>

I always thought that utf-8 takes care of 'foreign' characters.

**jscheuer1** · 01-10-2013, 10:53 PM

Validates just fine here:

http://home.comcast.net/~jscheuer1/side/eacute.htm

I think you may have saved the page in ANSI encoding. That won't validate. In order for a page containing "High ASCII" characters to validate as UTF-8, it must be saved as UTF-8. Notepad allows you to change the encoding in its "Save As" dialogue. NotePad++ allows you to switch between various encodings virtually at will, as well as to set a default encoding for various file types and/or all file types. Other editors may or may not have similar options.

Further proof would be if you published your page, the eacute character would probably not render correctly.

BTW, in ANSI encoding, the eacute that will validate as UTF-8 looks like so:

Ã©

It's a 2 byte character.

Another possibility is that your server is overriding the encoding set on the page. That's another issue.