Text/symbols used in ImageString not showing correctly
<p>I am having a few issues, and have no idea how to work around it and it's been bugging me for days. </p>

<p>I have a script that creates demotivational posters.<br>
(example: <a href="http://www.motifake.com/image/demotivational-poster/0901/hey-beetlejuice-doris-joker-funny-demotivational-poster-1231432214.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://www.motifake.com/image/demotivational-poster/0901/hey-beetlejuice-doris-joker-funny-demotivational-poster-1231432214.jpg</a>)</p>

<p>The issue I am faced with is the TEXT that is inputted with symbols like:  !@£$%^&amp;*(),.~'</p>

<p>They never show, or come back with different symbols to what they should be, Like a <code>\</code>
will be <code>\\</code> and a <code>'</code> will be <code>'\</code>. </p>

<p>I have no special formatting the way the code is used is as follow: 
This is the input field for the text:
    Motivational text: <code>&lt;input type="text" name="motivationaltext"&gt;</code></p>

<p>In my PHP file I use:</p>

<pre><code>$motivationaltext = $_POST['motivationaltext'];    
</code></pre>

<p>And later on I use this for the image string: </p>

<pre><code>CenterImageString($im, $width, $motivationaltext, 16, ($top + $imgy + 74), $text_color);    
</code></pre>

<p>Does anyone have a idea on how to go about this?</p>
