Symbols appear without problem within the Microsoft Word document but show as ? in the database

Answer

This is due to the limitation of the Database character set. If the special character is not recognized, the DB server will convert to another character during the insert\update of a requirement.

While it will not do any damage to have special characters or symbols in Microsoft Word, the database may not recognize any of the resulting symbols as being valid. The character will be stored within the Word document, however in some circumstances may not be stored in the database. When the character cannot be converted, a placeholder character will be placed in the database, which is often an upside-down question mark.

If a placeholder character is placed within the database, and special character is stored correctly within the document, there will be an inconsistency between the document and the database. Due to this inconsistency, in some circumstances, when the document is saved, the user may be prompted with change description dialogs. These dialog windows appear, because the document and database should store the same data. The save will try to write the quote into the requirement text within the database. A placeholder character is written.

To completely resolve this issue, make sure that all characters are ASCII characters in RequisitePro, or change the character set in the database that supports this special characters. You can also test this outside of RequisitePro by manually inserting the special character in a table and then querying that record. You will notice that the information is stored but the special character is converted into another character.