This replaces or removes special characters. Useful when a font cannot reproduce.

clean_characters.py

# Some fonts may not be able to represent all characters.
# This replaces or removes the offending characters.

# Get the contents.
f = open('translate.txt', 'r')
file_contents = f.read()
f.close()

# Escape all special characters.
escaped_string = file_contents.encode('ascii', 'xmlcharrefreplace').decode('utf-8')

# Replace all known characters.
escaped_string = escaped_string.replace('à', 'à')
escaped_string = escaped_string.replace('à', 'à')
escaped_string = escaped_string.replace('É', 'É')
escaped_string = escaped_string.replace('è', 'è')
escaped_string = escaped_string.replace('é', 'é')
escaped_string = escaped_string.replace('é', 'é')
escaped_string = escaped_string.replace('ê', 'ê')
escaped_string = escaped_string.replace('ô', 'ô')
escaped_string = escaped_string.replace('û', 'û')
escaped_string = escaped_string.replace('’', '’')
escaped_string = escaped_string.replace('“', '"')
escaped_string = escaped_string.replace('”', '"')
escaped_string = escaped_string.replace('«', '«')
escaped_string = escaped_string.replace('»', '»')
escaped_string = escaped_string.replace('​', '')  # Zero with space.

# Verify that all characters have been converted.
missing_entry = escaped_string.find('&#')
if missing_entry != -1:
    end = escaped_string.find(';', missing_entry) + 1
    print('Missing conversion at ' + str(missing_entry) + ': ' + escaped_string[missing_entry:end])
else:
    print(escaped_string)