FAQ Question #133

LiveJournal sends data in the UTF-8 encoding, which increases support for international users.

If characters in your journal or User Info appear as ? rather than the proper symbol, or if you have ever used special symbols in your journal entries or user bio (such as accented letters, pound signs, or Microsoft Word "SmartQuotes"), you need to set your default encoding. You will not be able to edit your entries until you do so.

To do this, first visit your Personal Info settings (http://www.livejournal.com/editinfo.bml). Scroll down to the bottom and choose your default text encoding.

Most native speakers of English who are Windows users should choose "Western European (Windows)" as their default encoding. Most native speakers of English who are Macintosh users should choose "Western European (ISO)".

Once you have done this, visit the UTF-8 Conversion Page (http://www.livejournal.com/utf8convert.bml). Most users can safely select "Yes, mass-convert my information!" If you know that you have ever used a text encoding other than Western European, choose to convert your account area-by-area and test first before converting.

If you experience problems such as extra spaces being added to your entries, characters being added or deleted, or unusual symbols being displayed on your screen, you may need to upgrade your web browser. Many older browsers are not UTF-aware or do not handle the UTF-8 encoding gracefully.