Special characters: what’s allowed and what to avoid

Special characters

Some special characters may get converted to “???” when you load the eForm in Step 2: Forms.

The tables below list the (1) special characters that can be used, and (2) those that should be avoided. Do note that the lists may not be exhaustive.

Special characters that can be used

Special charactersDescription
&Ampersand
@Ampersat
*Asterisk
\   /Backslash / Forward slash
^Circumflex, caret
:Colon
,Comma
{   }Curly brackets
$Dollar sign
“   ”Double quotation mark
=Equal sign
!Exclamation mark
`Grave accent
>   < Greater than / Less than
–Hyphen, Dash
#Octothorpe / Hash
(   )Parentheses
%Percent sign
.Period
+Plus sign
?Question mark
;Semicolon
‘Single quotation mark, Apostrophe
[   ]Square brackets
~Tilde
_Underscore
|Vertical bar, Pipe

Special characters that should be avoided

Special characters / SymbolsDescription
©Copyright symbol
€Currency – Euro
₱Currency – Peso
£Currency – Pound
₨Currency – Rupee
₩Currency – Won
¥Currency – Yen
÷Divide
…Ellipsis
—Em-dash
–En-dash
⅓Fractions
®Registered
˚Ring above (for temperature)
™Trademark symbol

Recommendations:

  • Use a hyphen (-) instead of an en-dash (–) or em-dash (—)
  • In place of currency symbols, state the currency in words eg
    • Euro instead of €
    • Yen instead of ¥