Carriers may block messages containing certain non-standard characters (details below). Accordingly, TextPower prevents those characters from being entered into a message in AlertManager but caution should be taken when sending messages via an API. Only 'standard' characters are permitted in an SMS message:
- all alphabetic characters, both upper and lower case
- all numeric characters
- 31 of the 32 American/English punctuation characters found on a standard computer keyboard. See permitted list below. The \ (backslash) character does not display properly so this character is prohibited.
Two notes of caution:
- ALWAYS type directly into the text box on AlertManager, never copy/paste text from another source.
- If you have "smart quotes" (which turn standard apostrophes and quotes into "curly" quotes) turned on in your computer settings you may enter a character that is not permitted.
Allowable characters include:
Symbol Description
! Exclamation mark
“ Double quotes (or speech marks)
# Number or hashtag
$ Dollar
% percent sign
& Ampersand
‘ Single quote
( Open (or left) parenthesis
) Close (or right) parenthesis
* Asterisk
+ Plus
, Comma
- Hyphen
. Period, dot or full stop
/ Slash or divide
: Colon
; Semicolon
< Less than (or open angled bracket)
= Equals
> Greater than (or close angled bracket)
? Question mark
@ At symbol
[ Opening bracket
] Closing bracket
^ Caret – circumflex
_ Underscore
` Grave accent
{ Opening brace
| Vertical bar
} Closing brace
~ Equivalency sign – tilde
TextPower has no control over what carriers will accept in an SMS message so exceptions cannot be made. Note that foreign language alphabetic characters can be used provided that the account is configured for it. If you wish to send messages using Spanish, French, German, Korean, Chinese or other non-English character sets please contact Support@TextPower.com for assistance.