Re: how to scan file for non-ascii chars (eg cut-n-paste from ms-word)

[dkcombs@panix.com (David Combs)]

In article <mailman.11.1294583034.18702.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>,
Eli Zaretskii  <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
>> From: dkcombs@panix.com (David Combs)
>> Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
>> Date: 8 Jan 2011 19:53:01 -0500
>> 
>> When I 'cut-n-paste' from eg ms-word-produced document, into an
>> emacs buffer (ie ascii), you get all kinds of "non-ascii" chars,
>> eg left and right double-quotes, like these:
>> 
>> 
>> Char: . (8221, #o20035, #x201d) point=250 of 4096 (6%) column=7
>> Char: . (8220, #o20034, #x201c) point=218 of 4096 (5%) column=42
>> 
>> 
>> accents, and so on.
>> 
>> When I go to save the buffer, emacs will ask if I want to
>> save it in eg japanese format.  Not exactly what I want.
>
>Doesn't it suggest utf-8 as one of the possible encodings?  If so, why
>not use utf-8 and leave these characters in the file?

Because (er, as an excuse) I often want to copy-paste them into
an ASCII hints-and-tricks file I keep for my own use, and
which I then edit and search-within via emacs (of course).

Suppose I want to PRINT from that supposedly-ASCII file --
does my old (but wonderful) HP-1200 laserjet -- all it has
for fonts are the original times, some-sans-serif one, 
something else (I forget), and "symbol".  Isn't that
a problem?

FURTHER, and more importantly, how do I *search* for
one of these funny things, a left-double-quote, say?
It's so *easy* to just hit C-s "!


Given my current state of emacs-knowledge on "foreign"
fonts (like zero), that's what I say -- until I can
somehow learn more.


Thanks!



>
>> What I'd like to do is change those "strange" characters
>> to their plain-ascii "equivalent", so to speak.  Like
>> '"' for double quote (left OR right), etc.
>
>Not sure why would you want that, but doesn't M-% solve this problem
>nicely?  If not, why not?
>

You mean do a query-replace on each non-ascii char?  How do I 
even know which ones are even *in* some buffer of text?

What'd be nice is something that went through the whole
buffer *once*, doing the "right thing" with each
non-ascii char.


Do I make any sense?  Or do I not really understand?


Thanks,

David