Special character configuration

You can specify the special characters that content authors can insert into a format area field in the SpecialCharacters.xml file.

About this task

If a Schema designer enables Special Characters formatting for a format area field, content authors will be able to select these characters and insert them directly into their text.

By default, the SpecialCharacters.xml configuration file includes the following special characters:
  • non-breaking space
  • copyright symbol
  • registered symbol
  • trademark symbol
  • section symbol
  • paragraph symbol
  • single opening quote
  • single closing quote
  • euro sign

Procedure

  1. Navigate to your Content Manager installation \Tridion\web\WebUI\Models\CME\Configuration folder.
  2. Open SpecialCharacters.xml in a text editor.
  3. Configure the elements as follows:

    The format of this file is as follows:

    
    <Entries>
    	<Entry>		
    		<Value>string or character</Value>
    		<Description>Generic Description</Description>
    		<Description lang="User Language ID 1">Description for User	Language 1</Description>
    		<Description lang="User Language ID 2">Description for User	Language 2</Description>
    	</Entry>
    </Entries>

    An entry in this field may be a string or a single character. In addition, you can specify special characters for different languages using a lang attribute within the Description element of the entry.

    <Entries>
    The Parent node for all special characters specified in the file.
    Syntax
    <Entries xmlns="http://www.tridion.com/ContentManager/5.2/FormatArea">
    Children
    <Entry>
    <Entry>
    Defines a special character.
    Syntax
    <Entry></Entry>
    Attributesnone
    Parent
    <Entries>
    Children
    <Value>
    <Description>
    <Value>
    Specifies a string or single character. You can specify:
    • A text string or character. For example, this could be used to store a Company or Product Name that you use often.
    • An HTML entity or ISO Latin-1 code. For example, you can use this to store accents or special characters such as the copyright symbol.
    Syntax
    <Value>...</Value>
    Attributesnone
    Parent
    <Entry>
    Siblings
    <Description>
    Childrennone
    In the following example, the Value element identifies a non-breaking space:
    <Value>&#160;</Value>
    Description
    Provide a description of the special character. The value of the Description element is used as tooltip text in the Special Character dialog. You can add as many Description nodes as necessary for each Entry.
    Syntax
    <Description lang="nnnn">
    Attributeslang—the language ID:
    • 1043 Dutch
    • 1033 English
    • 1036 French
    • 1031 German
    • 1034 Spanish
    Use the lang attribute to localize the selection list to provide descriptions of each language in the user's own language.
    Parent<Entry>
    Siblings<Value>
    Childrennone
  4. Save and close SpecialCharacters.xml.