An email from alert reader David reads:
A new question, related to my website. I recently posted a new article to my site. I posted a Word version of a recent article of mine, and used the Post as Plain Text button to insert it. It all came over fine, except for one spot where the number “8″ turned into a smiley face. When I go to the site to edit the text it shows as “8″. I deleted and typed it over, but when I exit and load the site again, it still shows the smiley face.
After a little detective work, I found the answer. David is using WordPress, a popular blogging tool. In WordPress there’s a feature to allow you to replace ‘smiley-face’ emoticons with graphical representations. You can diable this feature by logging in, then going to
Settings > Writing > Formatting > uncheck the box labelled “Convert emoticons like :-) and :-P to graphics on display”
Finally, click ‘Save Changes’ at the bottom of the screen.
