Using '&' in the page title in SharePoint 2010

Question

I have created a page in SharePoint 2010 and in the Title field it reads 'Faculty & Staff'. However, when I view the page in the browser it displays 'Faculty %26Staff'. I have tried different ways to escape the ampersand including using the HTML code for it and adding a second ampersand next to it. Nothing seems to work. Does anyone know how to escape it in the title? Thank you, David!

Answer 1

I actually found the answer here: http://onlinecoder.blogspot.com/2012/05/special-characters-in-sharepoint-top.html You need to find the following block of code in your masterpage:

<SharePoint:AspMenu
    ID="TopNavigationMenuV4"
    Runat="server"
    EnableViewState="false"
    DataSourceID="topSiteMap"
    AccessKey="<%$Resources:wss,navigation_accesskey%>"
    UseSimpleRendering="true"
    UseSeparateCss="false"
    Orientation="Horizontal"
    StaticDisplayLevels="1"
    MaximumDynamicDisplayLevels="1"
    SkipLinkText=""
    CssClass="s4-tn"/>

and add EncodeTitle="false" after SkipLinkText="" Save and Publish your file.

Answer 2

It looks like this is a bug that was fixed in an post-RTM update. So the real solution would be to install Service Pack 1 (or later, if available).

I stumbled upon this issue on a client's farm. They weren't yet ready to install the Service Pack and the 'EncodeTitle' solution didn't work for me. So I fixed it by including the following piece of Javascript (also using jQuery).

Warning: It's a specific fix for a specific encoding issue they experienced. You may have to adapt the search pattern and replacement string to your specific situation.

<script type="text/javascript" src="/...somescriptsdoclib.../jquery-1.8.2.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">

    jQuery(document).ready(function () {

        fixSiteTitleBug();

    });

    function fixSiteTitleBug()
    {
        var searchPattern = /&amp;#39;/gm;
        var replacement = '\'';

        // Fix Quick Launch items
        var html = jQuery('#s4-leftpanel-content').html().replace(searchPattern, replacement);
        jQuery('#s4-leftpanel-content').html(html);

        // Fix breadcrumb items
        jQuery('a.breadcrumbNode').each(function () {
            jQuery(this).html(jQuery(this).html().replace(searchPattern, replacement));
        });

        jQuery('a.breadcrumbRootNode').each(function () {
            jQuery(this).html(jQuery(this).html().replace(searchPattern, replacement));
        });
    }

</script>