UNABLE TO POST TO EBAY INVALID CHARACTERS

Well, I got so excited, thought "Man! I'm on a roll now." Got 1 more item listed and thought my troubles were over. What a joke! Anyway, I got the 1 item listed by removing ALL quotes anywhere in the sellers template. I thought my problems were over, but apparently not. I tryed submitting a listing without using the sellers template and it posted. So back to the drawing board, something in the template is holding me back. I'm going to give it another good hour, but if that doesn't do it - then forget Auctiva. I've got a business to run!

Hi litebright,

This error usually crops up when copying/pasting from Microsoft Word because that program likes to insert "special" characters (like those quotation marks, if you look closely you might notice they actually look different from regular quotes.)

In our release early next week we should be helping to resolve this issue by automatically replacing those special characters with valid ones for you when you save your ad.

I apologize for the inconvenience in the mean time

Auctiva David

like david said, word likes to tinker with your text and html.

my advice - never ever ever use word as your editor for stuff you're going to push out to the web.

for plain text and html, I use notepad++ (a free program) which has tabbing, and several other cool features.

Something I've just started doing 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. 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.

Thanks Guys! I'll use notepad instead of word. Actually got a few postings up. So looking good so far. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

glad to hear working now.

if you want notepad++ (a bit more powerful than notepad) main page for it is at http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm and download is at http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/notepad-plus/npp.3.7.Installer.exe?download

some features are
Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding
--Supported languages : C, C++, Java, C#, XML, HTML, PHP, Javascript, RC resource file, makefile, ASCII art file (extension .nfo , screenshot1, screenshot2), doxygen, ini file, batch file, ASP, VB/VBS source files, SQL, Objective-C, CSS, Pascal, Perl, Python, Lua, TCL, Assembler, Ruby, Lisp, Scheme, Properties, Diff, Smalltalk, Postscript and VHDL.
WYSIWYG

If you have a colour printer, print your source code (or whatever you want) in colour.


User Defined Syntax Highlighting
--It allows user to define his own language : not only the syntax highlighting keywords, but also the syntax folding keywords, comment keywords and the operators. ( screenshot1, screenshot2, screenshot3, screenshot4 ).

Auto-completion
--For most supported languages, user can make his/her own API list (or download the api files from dowload section). Once the api file is ready, type Ctrl+Space to launch this action (see screenshot). For more information about Auto-completion, please see Auto-completion HOWTO.

Multi-Document
--You can edit several documents at the same time.

Multi-View
--You have two views at same time. That means you can visualize (edit) 2 different documents at the same time (screenshot). You can visualize (edit) in the 2 views one document at 2 different positions as well. The modification of document in one view will carry out in another view (i.e. you modify the SAME document when you are in clone mode, see screenshot).

Regular Expression Search/Replace supported
--You can search and replace one string in the document by using the regular expression.

Full Drag ‘N' Drop supported
--You can open a document by drag & drop. You can also move your document from a position (or even a view) to another by drag & drop.

Dynamic position of Views
--The user can set the position of the views dynamically (only in 2 views mode : the splitter can be set in horizontal or in vertical), see screenshot.

File Status Auto-detection
--If you modify or delete a file which opened in Notepad++, you will be notified to update your document (reload the file or remove the file).

Zoom in and zoom out
--That's another fantastic function of Scintilla component. Just see screenshot.

Multi-Language environment supported
--The Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic and Hebrew Windows environments are supported. See Notepad++ under the Chinese Windows , under the Arabic Windows and under the Hebrew Windows in action screenshot.

Bookmark
--User can just click on the bookmark margin (located right side of line number margin) or type Ctrl+F2 to toggle a book mark. To reach the bookmark, type just F2 (Next bookmark) or Shift+F2 (Previous bookmark). To clear all bookmarks, click the Menu Search->Clear All bookmarks. See screenshot.

Brace and Indent guideline Highlighting
--When the caret stay beside of one of those symbol { } [ ] ( ) , the symbol beside of caret and its symmetric opposite symbol will be highlighted, as well as the indent guideline (if any) in order to locate the block more easily. See screenshot1, screenshot2 .

Macro recording and playback
--You can save several macros and edit their keyboard shorcuts for the next use.

also, if you accidently shut down notepad++ before saving the file, it will remember the info and show it to you again when you reopen notepad++ (if it prompts you to save and you say no, then it doesnt bring it back, but if notepad++ simply gets closed without going through the save routine, then it does bring it back)

Aargh! I have tried everything to fix this invalid characters issue even leaving the text box completely blank. Any pros still lingering around this old post?