> XML files when imported, show non plain ascii chars
> as (appearance of) \234  (but as a single character space).
> 
> I'm fairly used to non plain chars in their xyz entity form,
> but how do I translate these into glyphs please? Or character
> references I might understand as a human, not a machine.
> 
> I can honestly say this is the first time I have frowned at
> emacs :-) 
> 
> Is it hex, decimal, <cringe>octal</cringe>.

It is octal. \234 should be 2*64+3*16+4 being ascii 170.

Apparently the multi-language extensions to Emacs does not embrace UTF-8 yet (even though Google reports some initial attempts).  I usually confirm with Internet Explorer, but that does probably not apply to you.  Otherwise, running the file through a identity XSLT-file with xsl:output set to iso-latin-1 might be another option.

-- 
  Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen   "...and...Tubular Bells!"


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