SUBMITTING UTF-8 SPECIAL CHARACTERS

Special Characters in Submissions

Grants.gov is configured to receive and transfer all UTF-8 characters, which includes those characters commonly referred to as "special characters."

Examples of special characters include the tilde (~), letters with accent marks (á), and Greek letters (μ). Grants.gov will receive and transfer all UTF-8 characters as they are entered into Grants.gov via:

  1. PDF and S2S submissions

  2. User interface (UI) entry

  3. System-to-system (S2S) connection

Informative status

NOTE: Grants.gov does not accept all UTF-8 special characters in file attachment names. For more details, see the section below: What are the special character restrictions on file names for attachments included in application packages?

Why does this matter for Applicants?
Applicants are able to enter all special characters from the UTF-8 character set when submitting applications and information to Grants.gov. However, if the grantor's system is not yet compatible with these special characters, the grantor system may produce garbled or missing text in the application. As a result, the application may be rejected.   

Applicants should also identify whether the system they use to apply to Grants.gov is compatible with special characters in the UTF-8 character set. If the applicant system is not compatible, but the applicant still enters special characters, then Grants.gov may receive garbled or missing data which will be transferred to the grantor.

Applicant Actions:

•    Read all the instructions provided by the grantor, which may include instructions not to use certain special characters.
•    Check your grant application systems for compatibility with special characters in the UTF-8 character set, if applicable.  

Why does this matter for Grantors?
Grants.gov will transfer the special characters in an application exactly as received. However, if the grantor's systems, including S2S, are not compatible with the entire UTF-8 character set, then the grantor systems will not be able to read the special characters. The result may be garbled or missing data in applications.

Grantor Actions:

•    Upgrade your system to accept special characters in the UTF-8 character set.
•    Include instructions to applicants which special characters cannot be submitted in applications.

Special Character Impact Summary Table

Applicant UTF-8 Compatibility

Grantor UTF-8 Compatibility

Applicant Impact

Grantor Impact

PDF Applicant using UTF-8 Compatible Package
  • Grantor uses Grants.gov UI
  • Grantor S2S with grantor system UTF-8 compatible
  • In most cases, grantors will view the application as submitted by the applicant including special characters.
  • Until grantors install Adobe Reader add-on font packages, certain Asian and Middle-Eastern characters may not be visible to grantors.
  • If applicants use certain Asian and Middle-Eastern characters, grantors may be prompted to download and install an Adobe Reader add-on font package.
  • Agency-wide security settings often prevent users from installing the required Adobe Reader add-on.
  • Grantor S2S with grantor system not UTF-8 compatible
  • Applicant submissions with special characters should no longer be rejected by Grants.gov but may be rejected by the grantors due to the inability of the grantor system to process the full UTF-8 character set.
  • Grantors are unlikely to view special characters in the submitted application.
  • Grantors are likely to experience current Grant.gov incompatibility issues including garbled characters and rejections due to incorrect hash values and field lengths exceeded.
  • Additional unpredictable outcomes may also be experienced by the grantor systems while processing special characters.
  • Grantors may need to update application instructions to explicitly state applicants should not use special characters in their grant applications.
Applicant S2S with applicant system  not UTF-8 Compatible
  • Grantor uses Grants.gov UI
  • Grantor S2S with grantor system UTF-8 compatible
  • Grantor S2S with grantor system not UTF-8 compatible
  • Grants.gov and the grantor systems will receive and process the application as submitted by the Applicant system.  However, special characters in the UTF-8 character set not supported by the applicant system will not be sent to Grants.gov or the grantors.
  • None
Applicant S2S with applicant system UTF-8 Compatible
  • Grantor uses Grants.gov UI
  • Grantor S2S with grantor system UTF-8 compatible
  • In most cases, grantors will view the application as submitted by the applicant including special characters.
  • Until grantors install Adobe Reader add-on font packages, certain Asian and Middle-Eastern characters may not be visible to grantors.
  • If applicants use certain Asian and Middle-Eastern characters, grantors may be prompted to download and install an Adobe Reader add-on font package.
  • Agency-wide security settings often prevent users from installing the required Adobe Reader add-on.
  • Grantor S2S with grantor system not UTF-8 compatible
  • Applicant submissions with special characters should no longer be rejected by Grants.gov but may be rejected by the grantors due to the inability of the grantor system to process the full UTF-8 character set.
  • Grantors are unlikely to view special characters in the submitted application.

 

  • Grantors are likely to experience current Grant.gov incompatibility issues including garbled characters and rejections due to incorrect hash values and field lengths exceeded.
  • Additional unpredictable outcomes may also be experienced by the grantor systems while processing special characters.
  • Grantors may need to update application instructions to explicitly state applicants should not use special characters in their grant applications.

What are the special character restrictions on file names for attachments included in application packages?

Review the application instructions provided by the award-making agency for their attachment restrictions. You should also review the instructions on the form you are completing.

If there are no restrictions for file names identified by the agency or in the form, then the file name restrictions are as follows:

  • Please limit file names to 50 or fewer characters

  • Do not attach any documents with the same name. All attachments should have a unique name.

  • Please use only the following UTF-8 characters when naming your attachments: A-Z, a-z, 0-9, underscore, hyphen, space, period, parenthesis, curly braces, square brackets, ampersand, tilde, exclamation point, comma, semi colon, apostrophe, at sign, number sign, dollar sign, percent sign, plus sign, and equal sign. Attachments that do not follow this rule may cause the entire application to be rejected or cause issues during processing.

Informative status

NOTE: All applicants MUST follow the guidance on file naming conventions.

We are seeing issues (i.e. "java.lang.Exception: 16 errors") when submissions are not following the filename restrictions.

Below are two examples where the system returned "error 16" when an applicant used an incorrect filename:

EXAMPLE 1

[2009-02-11 11:17:46,610][FATAL][GrantS2SFacade.submitApplication()1377]-Couldn't completely receive Submission due to unknown Exception. Throwing Exception to WS Implementation

org.dom4j.InvalidXPathException: Invalid XPath expression: //att:FileLocation[@att:href='D'ASSORO+BCRT+2002_FTLUII5NT77KT4IQDKQGDQBAD6.pdf'] Expected: ]

java.lang.Exception: 16

EXAMPLE 2

//att:FileLocation[@att:href='cid:GP_Candidate's_Background.pdf]