This reminder is intended for newer users of the E2 database.
As you are probably aware, if you write your writeups in a word processor such as Microsoft Word you should remove all smart quotes and other non-ASCII characters before pasting your work into the appropriate text box on E2. The easiest way to achieve this of course is to copy and paste it into a plain text editor first.
Rather less obviously, but perhaps even more importantly, it is also necessary to do this before pasting a node title into the 'Search' box on E2 when you are considering posting a writeup and want to check if it has already been noded. If you inadvertently include a smart quote in the search field, your search will not turn up an existing node with that same title and you will end up duplicating an existing node.
If you would like to change the settings in Word so that you can avoid this problem, follow these steps:
Go to
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Tools
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AutoCorrect
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AutoFormat
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Uncheck the box,
Replace "straight quotes" with "smart quotes."
Many thanks to dannye for patiently pointing this out to me, and for providing additional information regarding settings in Word.