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Re: Text Question

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On 11-18-2013, 15:09, isw wrote:
> I collect recipes. Of course, recipes frequently use amounts such as
> "1/2" or "1/4".
>
> Sometimes, when I import recipes into Mac Gourmet from certain web
> sites, the fraction is sort of "compressed": the slash overlaps the
> digits in an odd way. Doesn't happen with many sites, but "Food Network"
> is one.
>
> Doing a manual edit to fix the problem, it appears that there is some
> invisible thing in there -- it takes three "delete" strokes to get rid
> of the 4 and the / of "1/4", for example.
>
> I'd like to write a script to fix this every time it occurs, but I don't
> know what to look for.
>
> Any suggestions on how to find out what's going on in the text or how to
> fix it?

There's probably an invisible character that affects spacing, either in 
the original, or inserted by Mac Gourmet.

If you can put the text in a file, open it in TextEdit with encoding 
"automatic"  Then "save as" encoding UTF-16.  Then,

od -xc filename

will show you the hexadecimal for all the characters.

If you find an extra bit pattern in your fraction, you can look up what 
it is online.  If, for example, you see

iMac:~ wgroleau$ od -xc striketext
0000000  feff    0073    0336    0074    0336    0072    0336    0069
        377 376   s  \0   6 003   t  \0   6 003   r  \0   6 003   i  \0

and you want to find out the character between the 's' and the 't' …
(Note that the characters are byte swapped from the hex)

Use   Unicode   and    U+0336   as search terms  and you'll find things 
like <https://www.google.com/search?q=Unicode+U%2B0336>


-- 
Wes Groleau

Change is inevitable.  We need to learn that “inevitable" is
neither a synonym for “good" nor for “bad.”

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Text Question isw <isw@witzend.com> - 2013-11-18 12:09 -0800
  Re: Text Question David Ritz <dritz@mindspring.com> - 2013-11-18 15:47 -0600
    Re: Text Question isw <isw@witzend.com> - 2013-11-18 22:08 -0800
      Re: Text Question ErikRS <mac-dane@is.invalid> - 2013-11-23 01:14 +0100
  Re: Text Question Wes Groleau <Groleau+news@FreeShell.org> - 2013-11-19 01:40 -0500
  Re: Text Question Salmon Egg <SalmonEgg@sbcglobal.net> - 2013-11-22 16:38 -0800
    Re: Text Question isw <isw@witzend.com> - 2013-11-22 22:21 -0800

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