My characters were changed

An SMS does not use Unicode by default but a restricted alphabet, defined in 1988 by the GSM standard. Characters absent from that alphabet therefore have to be converted, replaced or removed — which is why a message can arrive different from what you typed.

The causes, from most to least common

1. 1

   Accents are converted to plain letters

   To keep the message in GSM-7 and preserve the 160-character limit, accented letters missing from the alphabet are reduced to their unaccented equivalent.

2. 2

   Emoji are removed

   An emoji would tip the whole message into UCS-2 and cut the limit to 70 characters, so it is stripped before sending.

3. 3

   Typographic punctuation is replaced

   Curly quotes and em dashes, common when pasting from a word processor, are converted to their plain equivalents.

4. 4

   Some characters take two places

   The characters ^ { } \ [ ~ ] | and the € symbol exist in GSM-7 but count double, shortening the message accordingly.

What to do

1. 1

   Preview with the counter

   The character counter flags the problematic characters before sending and shows which encoding will be used.

2. 2

   Type directly into the form

   Pasting from a word processor brings typographic quotes and dashes that will be converted.

3. 3

   Replace emoji with words

   The meaning carries just as well, and the message keeps its 160 characters instead of dropping to 70.

4. 4

   Reread the converted result

   The form shows what will actually go out: that is the text the recipient will receive.

Frequently asked questions