Language issue

[Ted Carlson]

I have created a page in a small project that contains links to PDF files. The PDF file names are in Russian, and the page itself is a mixture of Russian and English. Everything appears normal both on the editing page and in the XML. However when I publish, the Russian characters in the link turn to a series of "?". Example below:

...<a href="pdf/9K38 ????.pdf" target="_blank" class="weblink">9K38 Игла</a></span><br />

I've looked through the project settings but have not found anything that looks like an error. Any guidance would be appreciated.

[Tim Green]

Hi Ted,

HTML filenames and also HTML servers are generally (99% of the time) not compatible with non-ASCII characters. When referencing files from HTML, always use the following rules for the filenames:

• No spaces
• No accented characters, umlauts, non-standard characters
• Only a..z, A--Z, 0..9, - and _
• Don't start a filename with a number

These rules are stricter than necessary, but easier to remember.

[Ted Carlson]

Found a workaround for this Cyrillic character problem. Using my previous example, I used Excel to create the XML. Using the EncodeURL() function, Excel returns the correct text. As a result, "pdf/9K38 Игла.pdf" becomes "/pdf/9K38%20%D0%98%D0%B3%D0%BB%D0%B0.pdf". Doesn't look pretty in XML or Google Analytics but it works and that's what matters.