In Oncourse CL, what do I need to know about using the UTF-8 character set?

Oncourse CL supports the UTF-8 encoding form of Unicode, which allows the use of alphabets and character sets other than standard Latin. For information on using your keyboard to input alternate character sets, see In Microsoft Word for Windows, how do I access foreign or special characters? and In Mac OS X, how can I type foreign language characters?

In Oncourse CL, you can use alternate character sets to type text in any text box in any of the tools (e.g., Assignments, Forums, Web Content, Syllabus, Messages, Chat). You can copy and paste text from a UTF-8 compliant application into Oncourse CL. In most cases, you can also use alternate characters in file names.

Known issues with the use of alternate character sets in Oncourse CL include:

• When copying and pasting text from Microsoft Word, be sure to use the Paste from Word function in the WYSIWYG editor. Copying and pasting from Word does not work well in Firefox 3 and may result in an error or in HTML tags displaying in your text.
  
  
• Depending on the application you are using to create a file to upload into Oncourse CL, you may need to explicitly save the file as a Unicode text file.
  
  
• If you use the Download All function in Assignments, you need to set the browser to UTF-8 in order to view feedback and submissions.
  
  
• The Unicode text format is not compatible with the comma-separated variable (.csv) format; Microsoft Excel allows you to save a file as either Unicode text or .csv. Since the Gradebook and Post'Em tools use .csv files to export and import data out of and into Oncourse CL, alternate characters are not preserved in these files.
  
  
• In the Forums, Syllabus, and Messages tools, you can successfully upload attachments with alternate characters in them, but when users click those files, they will get an error.
  
  
• If you use alternate characters in the Calendar tool, they will be rendered correctly on the screen but not in the printed version of the calendar.
  
  
• If you export a Wiki page as a .pdf file, alternate characters will not be rendered correctly in the .pdf file.

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