ANSI to Unicode symbol font conversion

[rpdrake]

Word 2004 cannot search for symbol font characters, even though it
clearly knows what they are because it displays them correctly. I need
a way to either convert the ANSI based symbol font characters to
Unicode equivalents or to be able to find them and replace them with
some kind of unique symbol. Visual Basic interprets all such characters
as character number 95.

The reason for this need: I have most of a physics book written in Word
2000, with extensive editing in Word 2004. I need to find and identify
symbol font characters for a Visusal Basic file conversion routine that
I have written as part of the need to put the manuscript mostly into
TeX for my publisher.

I'm running OS 10.3.9 with Word 2004.

Any help might save me a lot of tedious find and replace manual
activity.....

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

If you click the blue arrow in the Find dialog, it will let you set a font
to search for, from the Format dropdown. Have you tried that? Does that
help?

Have you tried using cmd-c, cmd-v to get the character into the Find dialog?

If you did all the editing in Word 2004, are you sure there are actually
symbol font characters in there? Word 2004 doesn't need the symbol
characters as earlier versions did, but I have no idea whether it switches
in Unicode behind the scenes even if you use Insert | Symbol.

Someone more knowledgeable is likely to come along.

 

[Tim Murray]

Word 2004 cannot search for symbol font characters, even though it
clearly knows what they are because it displays them correctly. I need
a way to either convert the ANSI based symbol font characters to
Unicode equivalents or to be able to find them and replace them with
some kind of unique symbol. Visual Basic interprets all such characters
as character number 95.

See if UnicodeChecker from earthlingsoft.net fits the bill.