OFFXP: Special Characters That Can Cause Problems in Web Pages (296781)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Office XP Professional
  • Microsoft Office XP Developer
  • Microsoft Office XP Professional with FrontPage
  • Microsoft Office XP Small Business
  • Microsoft Office XP Standard
This article was previously published under Q296781
For a Microsoft Office 2000 version of this article, see 238101.

SUMMARY

In Microsoft Office, you can use a variety of special characters when creating or saving files. Microsoft Windows also allows you to use special characters for naming files or folders. However, some of these special characters also have meanings in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), JScript, or VBScript. These characters can cause problems when they are used with documents intended for the World Wide Web.

MORE INFORMATION

When you name files or folders that you intend to use with HTML, File Transfer Protocol (FTP), or other Internet-related activities, avoid the following characters:
  • Space
  • Quotation marks: "
  • Apostrophe: '
  • Number sign: #
  • Percent sign: %
  • "Greater than" symbol: >
  • "Less than" symbol: <
The number sign (#) is reserved in Web links for bookmarks. In versions of Microsoft Excel earlier than Excel 2002, there are problems with files that include the number sign that are placed on Web servers. Therefore, when you save a file to a Web location, you cannot use the number sign in the file name. You can rename a file on a Web server to include a number sign; however, by design, the Open dialog box in Excel 2002 does not recognize that file name on Web folders. If you try to save a file with a number sign in the name, you receive the following error message:
Cannot save to a URL address with a bookmark (#). Type the correct address.
Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:7/22/2003
Keywords:kbhowto kbhtml kbweb KB296781
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