In the editor strip is an oft-overlooked button (looks like a key on the keyboard - far right). It's intended to allow us to enter special characters such as

© or ¶ or ¼
But not all of them work. For example I wanted the right facing black triangle.

It's there on the list (bottom row). It shows up when I insert it. But when I view the page, it shows up as a question mark instead. [/size]

SEE THE PROBLEM

In the Special Character key, we don't have a chance to choose a font. Apparently the default fonts used in the FCKEditor don't have this character.

? I tried using the Alt-Code Alt-16 and tried to make it appear here. I tried that in the editor, too, but it still shows up as a question mark both here and there.

Hoping the new CKEditor might do a better job when CC 3.0 is unveiled.

As you noted, "fonts .. don't have this character". Choose the font that has the special character first, then the special character. But then you have to be careful that the user has that font installed.

Special characters are only binary values, not characters per se. So you will get different special characters for different fonts at the same position. Many fonts don't have very many special characters. The right facing triangle is not all that common - I know that one because I've used it and ran into trouble with my program since I "forgot" I had fonts that other people do not have.

There's a program that is handy for showing fonts and "special characters". It's not on this system. I'll see if I can find it.

Edit: I had a program for this from way long ago, but it's now part of Windows - Windows character Map works fine.

Here's how to get there: Start > Programs > System Tools or Accessories

Pick the font and it shows all the characters available.

However, I think the current and the new editor have a bug. None of the available editor fonts have that special character as well as some of the others shown. Not sure what they were thinking when they made that map.

Image maps are one way to get those - but that's all custom code, not clickie clickie.

HERE'S a list of safe special characters