I'm having trouble understanding how Zope accepts, processes and transfers character data - or more precisely what the character-set rules and pitfalls are in a workflow in which . writers work in Word (or something) . copy is pasted or typed into a Zope form field via a rich-text browser widget . the field is filtered (to remove Word-HTML junk markup and characters we know might blow up MySQL) via a Python external method . into (non-UTF) MySQL . and back into a zope variable and redisplayed. Presumably character-set use/'tolerance' is relevant in WP application Browser Rich-text widget Python Zope MySQL ...and their interactions? Has anyone any experience or know of any information sources which might help me understand/control this workflow so that users have some chance of seeing what they thought they input? Thanks -- Mark Barratt Text Matters phone +44 (0)118 986 8313 fax +44 (0)118 931 3743 email markb@textmatters.com web http://www.textmatters.com