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

Oncourse 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, 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. In most cases, you can also use alternate characters in file names.

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

• Note: Pasting text from Microsoft Word directly into the WYSIWYG editor may result in garbled output, even if the text appears correct in the editor. Instead, to insert formatted text from a Word document, click the Paste from Word icon, and paste using Ctrl-v or Command-v. For details, see Pasting from Microsoft Word.

  Some users have reported problems using Paste from Word in Internet Explorer 9; for best results, use a supported browser. See Which browser should I use?

• When creating a file to upload into Oncourse, a few programs may require you to explicitly save the file as a Unicode text file.
  
  
• If you use the Download All function in Assignments, and you use a browser to view the resulting files on your computer, you may need to set the browser to UTF-8 in order to view feedback and submissions. Some browsers may perform better than others.
  
  
• The Unicode text format is not compatible with the comma-separated value (.csv) format. Since the Gradebook and Post'Em tools use .csv files to export and import data out of and into Oncourse, alternate characters are not preserved in these files.
  
  
• When uploading files to Oncourse (as attachments to items or otherwise), do not use any unsupported characters in filenames. Filenames that contain unsupported characters may appear to upload successfully, but when users click those files, they will get errors.
  
  
• 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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