What are the special characters that can not be in an HTML listing?
Original Post
Replies sorted oldest to newest
Did anything come up when you ran an Error Check on the listing?
Are you getting an error message about an attempt to post?
I'm actually not sure that there are any illegal characters for listings but I do know that someone else here was having problems using "¢" in the title line.
Are you getting an error message about an attempt to post?
I'm actually not sure that there are any illegal characters for listings but I do know that someone else here was having problems using "¢" in the title line.
No, I checked for three special characters - ", #, cents sign - and I do not have these characters in my listings - or as well as I can tell. Since I do not have a complete list of accepted or rejected character sets, I am not sure what to look for.
Yesterday, Tuesday, Auctiva rolled out an upgraded application that checks or defined special characters that eBay see as special characters and will not allow the posting to occur. This updated version of the software deals mainly with the new feature 'Seller's Details.'
Tech support believes that the Tuesday rollout solved the problem, but it did not. I have not reported the continuing problem to Auctiva Tech Support, yet.
Last week, many of the key Auctiva people were in Las Vegas for the eBay event; this explains the level of Auctiva support, along with the new features rollout just before the event. Moreover, this coding problem is very difficult for Auctiva to find. To me, it seems that the special character set needs to be defined.
Again, thank you for your concern and suggestions. I feel that you should be an employee of Auctiva; the company could benefit from your attitude and direction. I am lucky that you are reading this forum; for last week, you were the only voice of concern that I could find, despite words to the contrary in this forum last week. Most key people were in Las Vega, and the day-to-day work was not being supervised in a normal way; let alone the forum being covered the way that it usually would be covered - even though it is not ‘tech support.’
I am beginning to think that the single quote mark is the problem. In MS Word, this special character is defined with two different special characters – an open and close single quote mark. These must be outside the set of characters that eBay allows, and MS Word’s codes for these two characters first must be different, secondly when these special characters are changed by MS Word, these characters are changed to a third, but single character code. My listings have single quote marks. I do not believe that I have the three special characters that are listed in the beginning of this forum statement.
Yesterday, Tuesday, Auctiva rolled out an upgraded application that checks or defined special characters that eBay see as special characters and will not allow the posting to occur. This updated version of the software deals mainly with the new feature 'Seller's Details.'
Tech support believes that the Tuesday rollout solved the problem, but it did not. I have not reported the continuing problem to Auctiva Tech Support, yet.
Last week, many of the key Auctiva people were in Las Vegas for the eBay event; this explains the level of Auctiva support, along with the new features rollout just before the event. Moreover, this coding problem is very difficult for Auctiva to find. To me, it seems that the special character set needs to be defined.
Again, thank you for your concern and suggestions. I feel that you should be an employee of Auctiva; the company could benefit from your attitude and direction. I am lucky that you are reading this forum; for last week, you were the only voice of concern that I could find, despite words to the contrary in this forum last week. Most key people were in Las Vega, and the day-to-day work was not being supervised in a normal way; let alone the forum being covered the way that it usually would be covered - even though it is not ‘tech support.’
I am beginning to think that the single quote mark is the problem. In MS Word, this special character is defined with two different special characters – an open and close single quote mark. These must be outside the set of characters that eBay allows, and MS Word’s codes for these two characters first must be different, secondly when these special characters are changed by MS Word, these characters are changed to a third, but single character code. My listings have single quote marks. I do not believe that I have the three special characters that are listed in the beginning of this forum statement.
Tech support does not feel that I am using any special characters that are causing the problem - yet the character set of special characters or not accepted characters set has not been defined.
The eBay error check in Auctiva does not find any problems, but after the posting attempt, there is a new event message that says there was a special character in my listing.
The eBay error check in Auctiva does not find any problems, but after the posting attempt, there is a new event message that says there was a special character in my listing.
You may be right about the single-quote coming from Word.
What I've started doing lately (for different reasons) is writing my listings ahead of time but doing so within the design editor on the Auctiva listing page. When I've finished I switch to text mode, right click to Select All and then save the description to Notepad as unformatted text. Then when I'm ready to create the actual listing I switch the editor to text mode and copy from Notepad. No problems that I've noticed yet -- I assume because this means pasting in straight code rather than formatted text, if that makes sense.
Might be worth a shot.
What I've started doing lately (for different reasons) is writing my listings ahead of time but doing so within the design editor on the Auctiva listing page. When I've finished I switch to text mode, right click to Select All and then save the description to Notepad as unformatted text. Then when I'm ready to create the actual listing I switch the editor to text mode and copy from Notepad. No problems that I've noticed yet -- I assume because this means pasting in straight code rather than formatted text, if that makes sense.
Might be worth a shot.
Your approach is a good one. The reason that I do not like using typing directly into text areas like this forum's typing area is that I am the world's worst speller, and I really need spell checking. What suggestions do you have for usung a spell checking with your approach?
i dont know if this will work or not, but.. have you tried writing it in word, copy and paste into notepad, and then paste into auctiva? i dont know if notepad would convert the special characters back to plain text or not, but worth a try.
Hi CreativeImages,
There is one more step that needs to be done in order to get these listings posted and avoid receiving the "Invalid Characters" error message.
First, edit each of your seller details profiles and resave them without making any changes.
Then, open and resave any listings that you would like to post before posting them.
Once you have done these things, the fix should take effect and you should be able to post these listings successfully.
-Mike
There is one more step that needs to be done in order to get these listings posted and avoid receiving the "Invalid Characters" error message.
First, edit each of your seller details profiles and resave them without making any changes.
Then, open and resave any listings that you would like to post before posting them.
Once you have done these things, the fix should take effect and you should be able to post these listings successfully.
-Mike
Ah, good to know. I couldn't remember what the outcome was the other day..
Following tech support's directions, I edited, changed something, then saved all profiles and saved listings; re-scheduled saved listing for a scheduled posting to eBay, and they posted.
Thank for everyones help.
Thank for everyones help.