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Firefox set to Unicode, but still does not render some characters

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  • 2 have this problem
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  • Last reply by cor-el

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I have verified that the character encoding on Firefox 37.0.1 for Windows is set to "Unicode," but I stilll get character placeholders with hex numbers for some characters. How do I insure that every single possible Unicode character, no matter how arcane, is rendered properly?

I have verified that the character encoding on Firefox 37.0.1 for Windows is set to "Unicode," but I stilll get character placeholders with hex numbers for some characters. How do I insure that every single possible Unicode character, no matter how arcane, is rendered properly?

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In the middle of words or where you might expect an icon to appear?

Those boxes identify a character that Firefox cannot find in the font it is using. Now that many sites use custom fonts instead of images for icons, this tends to crop up more commonly.

If the problem is that a custom font isn't loading, the most common reason would be switching off the setting that lets sites choose their own fonts. You can check that here:

"3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Options > Content > "Advanced" button

The checkbox for "Allow pages to choose their own fonts" needs to be checked.

Some other less common causes for this:

  • Font downloading turned off in about:config
  • NoScript extension blocking font downloads

If the problem is not related to custom/downloadable fonts, could you give an example of a page where you see the problem?

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Note that the hex code shows what character is meant to be displayed. You normally need to have a font installed that covers this range.

Can you attach a screenshot and possibly post a link to a publicly accessible page?

  • Use a compressed image type like PNG or JPG to save the screenshot
  • Make sure that you do not exceed the maximum size of 1 MB