Entity Submenu

ISO Latin 1 Character Entities

The Entity submenu contains commands related to the entry, conversion and reconversion of HTML special character entities, diacriticals such as á, è, ü, and special characters <, >, &, and ".

The use of diacritical marks and their associated graphic characters are implemented differently on each platform. In order to reliably display particular special characters on WWW browsers, an HTML representation or “escape sequence” beginning with an ampersand (&) and ending with a semicolon (;) substitutes for the special character.

For example, the word “façade” would be represented in HTML as “fa&ccedil;ade”, the less-than sign as “&lt;”.

Insert Entity…
If you place the insertion point into a text field and then choose the “Insert Entity” command, a small window appears. Click on the desired entity symbol to insert the entity code into the field at the insertion point.

If the insertion point is not located in a text field, choosing the “Insert Entity” command displays the entity window. Click on the entity symbol to display the entity as text in the message box.

Convert Entities
If you create a text selection and then choose the “Convert Entities” command, the text selection will be scanned for any entity characters,
which will be replaced with HTML entity codes (such as ü to &uuml;).

Reconvert Entities
Reconverts a selection of text containing HTML entity representations back to their original entity characters (such as &uuml; back to ü).

Option Key: Convert/Reconvert ALL Entities
Note that certain entities will not be converted or reconverted automatically, as doing so would corrupt existing HTML tags: < > & "

To convert or reconvert ALL entities in the current selection, including < > & ", hold down the Option key while choosing the HTML menu, to modify the menu commands to “Convert ALL Entities” and “Reconvert ALL Entities.” Exercise caution when using these commands, as any HTML tags in the converted selection will no longer function as HTML tags.

Other Entities
Note that you can also display an ASCII character literally by number, using the format

   &#ascii_equivalent;

The entity codes are derived from “ISO 8879:1986//ENTITIES Added Latin 1//EN”. Note that all character entities are not implemented on all platforms or browsers.

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