If you want to include "special characters" in a webpage, you should convert them into their "HTML equivalents" so that all browsers will display them properly every time.

Some of the newer browsers are pretty sophisticated, and they'll interpret many special characters correctly regardless. If you use a newer browser, this can trick you into thinking that your webpage is "just fine" when in fact other people can't view it properly.

I tell my students "Don't assume that because you can bend the rules and you seem to get away with it, that it's OK to do so. That's a sloppy way to design webpages."

It's just like driving a car on the wrong side of the road. You can do that several times and have no problems. And someday you may decide to ignore the lines in the road. But someday you are going to run into a truck coming the other way. That's when you'll really appreciate why the rules were so important.

To be safe, it's always best to convert special characters into their HTML equivalents. Many HTML editing programs (like FrontPage, or PageMill) can take care of the conversion automatically.

If you need it, here's a "cheat sheet" which you can print-out to paper (or bookmark) to help you remember the codes:

http://cwire.com/pub/FYI/HTML/equivalents.asp