Be consistent with Unicode codepoints!

[da9ve]

When I want to insert a character via its Unicode codepoint, I type the HEX
code, select it, and Alt+X toggle it back and forth to the character/glyph.
This seems to be the easiest method in general of dealing with Unicode one
character at a time - since I can get the Unicode for any character already
existing in a document I 'inherit' with that toggle. BUT when I want to use
the Search/Replace feature to look for a specific character by its Unicode
codepoint, that feature requires me to use the DECIMAL version of the
codepoint with a little identifier character in front of it.

I'm sure there are reasons for both of these conventions, but it makes the
interface simply infuriating to use - constantly having to convert back and
forth from decimal to hexadecimal. It would be MUCH easier to deal with
Unicode if:
a) I could universally depend on on using ONE numbering convention for
codepoints,
b) if the Search/Replace feature had a 'mode' or at least a simpler, more
clearly explained method for searching on codepoints, possibly allowing
multi-character string searches with less cumbersome syntax.

Also, when I (rarely) use the Insert Symbol tool to insert a character _in
the Symbol font_ - I cannot toggle those characters with Alt+X. Why not?
What's different about them? I know that Symbol font is not Unicode
compliant, but why make it harder to figure out what codepoint is behind the
character? And why do they show up as being in the same font as the
surrounding text that I was editing, rather than actually showing up as
Symbol font, which is what the Insert tool told me I was using? This makes
it difficult if not impossible (haven't figured out the trick yet) to use
Search/Replace to scrub out the non-Unicode compliant characters.


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[Tony Jollans]

You can use the Alt+X toggle in the "Find what" box as well as the document.

Symbols are rather more complex - to put it mildly! There is some
information about finding them, here:
http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/MacrosVBA/FindReplaceSymbols.htm

 

[Pamelia Caswell via OfficeKB.com]

Also, when I (rarely) use the Insert Symbol tool to insert a character _in
the Symbol font_ - I cannot toggle those characters with Alt+X. Why not?
What's different about them?

Because they do not have unique character values. They are "ANSI"
characters formatted via a font change to look like another character. When
you insert a "character" from the symbol, webding, or wingding fonts, the
character codes are all 255 and below. So an alpha has the same character
code as a (97); mu, the same as m (109); the serifed circle R, the same as
cap O with grave; and the webding snowflake and the wingding ship on ocean,
the same as T (84). This is the older, pre-Unicode, method for obtaining
special characters. At one time you could toggle these characters to get the
hex code. For the last few years MS has protected them to avoid losing the
formatting (& making the character look like what it is).

Needless to say, the whole point of Unicode is to have a unique character
code for each character (or glyph) in the set.

Pam