characters combining when composing plain-text messages

[et01267]

If I type 'o' followed by '/' when composing the body of a plain text
message, these two characters combine magically to create ø (<- "Latin
small letter o with stroke"). Similarly, if I type 'l' followed by
'/', I get l (which is "Latin small letter l with stroke").

This only happens when composing plain text messages, and only when I
use Monaco 10 as the fixed-width font (e.g., courier-new does not
combine these characters).

I am using Entourage 11.1 and MacOS 10.3.9.

What's up with this. I don't see this behavior in other apps using
this font; Word, TextEdit, etc all work fine.

 

[matt neuburg]

If I type 'o' followed by '/' when composing the body of a plain text
message, these two characters combine magically to create ø (<- "Latin
small letter o with stroke"). Similarly, if I type 'l' followed by
'/', I get l (which is "Latin small letter l with stroke").

This only happens when composing plain text messages, and only when I
use Monaco 10 as the fixed-width font (e.g., courier-new does not
combine these characters).

I am using Entourage 11.1 and MacOS 10.3.9.

What's up with this. I don't see this behavior in other apps using
this font; Word, TextEdit, etc all work fine.

Although this occurs for you in Entourage, it doesn't seem like an
Entourage behavior; I could be wrong, but it sounds to me like some
other program or input method is interfering. m.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

If I type 'o' followed by '/' when composing the body of a plain text

Although this occurs for you in Entourage, it doesn't seem like an
Entourage behavior; I could be wrong, but it sounds to me like some
other program or input method is interfering. m.

When I first switched to OS X/Ent 2004, this happened to me with Palatino, I
think (not totally sure of the letter combinations, but stuff was changing).
But I'm pretty sure that the characters sent properly, it was just their
display on my computer that was off.

I didn't fix it, though, I just switched fonts to Calisto.

You could turn off AutoCorrect in Tools | AutoCorrect and see if it makes a
difference.

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

When I first switched to OS X/Ent 2004, this happened to me with Palatino, I
think (not totally sure of the letter combinations, but stuff was changing).
But I'm pretty sure that the characters sent properly, it was just their
display on my computer that was off.

I didn't fix it, though, I just switched fonts to Calisto.

You could turn off AutoCorrect in Tools | AutoCorrect and see if it makes a
difference.

I don't see these in AutoCorrect, an it wouldn't make sense to affect only
one font and size.

One thing which really sounds odd is

So it does not happen in HTML using Monaco 10??

That would seem to imply some sort of "other program" as Matt says. You
("et01267" - do you mind using a real name, please?) say

Word is not plain text. TextEdit windows by default are RTF. How about if
you go to Format/Make Plain Text in TextEdit? Do you see it then too?


I recall that there were discussions early in Entourage 2004 (using new
ATSUI formats) about strange goings-on with 10-pt. Monaco. It has something
to do with OS X ATSUI. People were advised to use an alternate font ProFont
or ProFontISOLatin.

<http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg14117.htm
l>

But this sounds different.
--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[et01267]

So it does not happen in HTML using Monaco 10??

That's right. Of course, I haven't done an exhaustive search, but I
can't make it happen in Monaco 10 in HTML.

That would seem to imply some sort of "other program" as Matt says. You
("et01267" - do you mind using a real name, please?) say

Yeah, that's me. Eric Tiffany.

Word is not plain text. TextEdit windows by default are RTF. How about if
you go to Format/Make Plain Text in TextEdit? Do you see it then too?

No. It only seems to happen in Entourage. Turning off the autocorrect
doesn't help.

I recall that there were discussions early in Entourage 2004 (using new
ATSUI formats) about strange goings-on with 10-pt. Monaco. It has something
to do with OS X ATSUI. People were advised to use an alternate font ProFont
or ProFontISOLatin.

<http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg14117.htm
l>

I'll check this out. Thanks. And thanks for the
Sync-Entourage-AddressBook

 

[et01267]

Oh, but if I do HTML in Palatino, I get the same behavior. 'o' with
slash through it, and 'l' with slash. These are actually separate
Unicode characters 00F8 and 0142 (at least when they display).

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

Oh, but if I do HTML in Palatino, I get the same behavior. 'o' with
slash through it, and 'l' with slash. These are actually separate
Unicode characters 00F8 and 0142 (at least when they display).

o/ l/ Yup - I confirm that. (This is Palatino 12: I made those by o + / and
l + /).

And not only that - it happens in TextEdit too - in both RTF and Plain Text
(you have to change the font back to Palatino from Monaco 10, which just so
happens to be the default when you switch to plain text).

Maybe once upon a time, before there were separate keyboards and language
kits this was a way to get these characters, in Palatino at least. (Note
that option-o also gets ø in all fonts, but option-l gets ¬. ) I wonder if
this behavior in plain text Monaco 10 was something that Entourage
developers once enabled while they were testing code, or more likely just
something they did wrong.

Anyway, call it a bug. If you really want plain text Monaco 10, check out
ProFont and ProFontISOLatin as alternatives.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[Barry Wainwright]

If I type 'o' followed by '/' when composing the body of a plain text
message, these two characters combine magically to create ø (<- "Latin
small letter o with stroke"). Similarly, if I type 'l' followed by
'/', I get l (which is "Latin small letter l with stroke").

This only happens when composing plain text messages, and only when I
use Monaco 10 as the fixed-width font (e.g., courier-new does not
combine these characters).

I am using Entourage 11.1 and MacOS 10.3.9.

What's up with this. I don't see this behavior in other apps using
this font; Word, TextEdit, etc all work fine.

It's a display glitch in the Apple Text drawing routines. If you change your
display font they will display correctly. Your recipients will also see the
correct characters - they are just compressed on your screen.