WordPress, Unicode, and ‘?’s

I previously had some problems when I mixed Unicode with WordPress. Every time I typed a Unicode character, (after posting) it would display as a ‘?’. This post will describe how to fix this.

Basically, the problem is that WordPress is not comprehending this, and instead of telling the database to store the Unicode characters, it just says, “Heck, just stick a bunch of question marks in there.”

Of course, this can be easily fixed in two steps. All you’ll need is FTP access to your server and a fair comprehension of how to type. So, let’s get started!

1. Open up ‘wp-config.php’ from the root directory of your WordPress installation.
2. Add ‘//’ at the very beginning of these two lines:
   define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8');
define('DB_COLLATE', '');

So that section should now look like this:
//define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8');
//define('DB_COLLATE', '');

You’re already finished. How easy was that?

Important notes:

1. The quotes surrounding // in step 2 should not be inserted. Those are just indicating that the // is the part you should insert.
2. If you’ve meddled with that part of ‘wp-config.php’ before, it may look a bit different. But pay no attention to the differences. Just be sure add // to the lines containing DB_CHARSET and DB_COLLATE.

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