In article , Peter
Taylor wrote:
"Rob Morley" wrote in message
t... In article
, ess
says... snip
Just pointing out that instead of typing 1.5mm^2 or 1.5(sq)mm you can
type ² by holding down the Alt key while typing 253 on the number pad on
the right of the keyboard like this: 1.5mm². 252 is cubed ³, 248 is
degrees ° and 171 is ?. There's lots more.


|Usenet was originally a 7-bit medium, and 8-bit characters won't display
|in software that expects text to be basic ASCII. There isn't a single
|standard for an extension to the basic ASCII set anyway, so even if
|software is 8-bit capable it won't necessarily display the character that
|the author intended.

Not that I fully understand this, but I think these Alt-xxx characters are
indeed part of the basic ASCII set. It's just that there aren't enough
keys on an English QWERTY keyboard to allot one key to every available
character. Is that not right?

All characters are available using Alt-xxx but only a limited number of
characters (as described in the paragraph above yours) are standard and so
guaranteed to display the same on recipients screen as on sender's screen.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
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