Dear all, I thank you for your patience and your kind effort to try and help me. I have tried every single suggestion but to know avail. I think the problem is that on top of the page webdesigner already puts the code "charset windows 1252" and therefore ignores the following command. I have worked around this problem now changing the two words in the form and redirecting the form to a second page that I have also changed so that it will display correctly.