Why does my text look strange?

Ahhh... the joys of cut and paste. It makes things easier, right? Unfortunately, in the web world the simple act of cutting and pasting can be a bit more complex than that. Here's why...

Many source applications (like MS Word) actually include their subtle formatting code in the background when highlighting and cutting/copy its text. Thus, when you paste that very same text into an editor elsewhere (especially in a web application) that text can can skewed and can actually wreak havoc within the application itself. For example, one application might not have any meaning for a character such as '%', yet in anther application, that very same character could mean to modify the directory to look for a value.

To combat this issue, it is always recommended to copy/cut and then 'paste as plain text' (this is actually why many editors have a small 'clipboard' icon in their editing toolbar!) and then use the host provider's built in editing/formatting tools to achieve the look you want.