How to encode sharp character in HTML?

Non-ASCII characters in HTML?

• I'm working on a simple website and have run into a small (but potentially time wasting) problem. I have to frequently use non-ASCII characters (Romanian special characters, others too), but the HTML editor I use can't seem to handle them (although I've tried changing the font, it still shows question marks instead of the characters I'm typing). Now, it's pretty simple to insert such a character in HTML using its Unicode code point (for example, &#x0218; for Ș), but it would be a horrible way to spend my days typing those 8 characters each time the letters show up in the text. I've also tried editing the HTML file in Notepad++, and sure enough, it worked - Notepad++ had no problems with typing them, Firefox had no problems with displaying them. The site, like I said, will be quite simple, so once I'm satisfied with the layout template I could theoretically edit the content in Notepad++ and still save some (or rather, a lot of) time. So, not counting searching for, installing and playing around with a new editor which may or may not do what I want it to, I have 2 options: 1. edit the content in Notepad++, using the special characters rather than their HTML codes, and hope that this doesn't affect the readability in some older version of IE or some obscure browser; 2. find a way to quickly convert ONLY non-ASCII characters and predefined entities (<, >, &...) to their HTML codes in a text, leaving regular characters (A-Z, 0-9, etc.) unchanged. Please advise: - Would the site be standard-compliant (and more importantly, readable in all kinds of browsers) if I used Unicode characters instead of their HTML codes? If so, try providing some relevant links. - Is there an easy, quick and free way to convert only said characters in a text to HTML codes (for example, an online converter or a JS script)? If the answer is yes, please say what it's called and where I can find it.

• Answer:

  If you use a site builder and write the non-ASCII characters it will convert if for you. Wordpress makes it easy to switch back and forth between Visual and HTML editing while you are working.