Difficulty getting Alt+X to work to insert Unicode characters

[FelixBlumenfeld]

The dialog box in Insert | Special Characters | Symbols tells you in the
lower right-hand corner that a shortcut for inserting Unicode characters is
to type the number, say 221A, and press Alt+X. According to the Help file
(under Insert a symbol | Unicode Options), this is something you can do while
in a document (instead of calling up the Symbols dialog box). I am using
Office 2003 (French-Canadian version), and it does not work. I have tried it
using Office 2002 and it does not work either. Nothing happens at all and, as
far as I know, Alt+X is not set to any customization. Thanks in advance for
any help.

 

[Debra]

Perhaps Alt+X is assigned to a different macro. Tools,
Cusomize, keyboard, category Macros, Macros and scroll
through the list of macros to see if this is the case.

 

[FelixBlumenfeld]

Perhaps Alt+X is assigned to a different macro. Tools,
Cusomize, keyboard, category Macros, Macros and scroll
through the list of macros to see if this is the case.

As far as I can tell (and I checked all key assignments), Alt+X is not
assigned to any function (which is what the dialog tells me when I press
Alt+X). There is not even one macro on my system that is assigned to a key
combination. Since I could not get it to work on my colleague's machine, I
have a feeling that this key sequence is disabled. Is there a bug?

 

[garfield-n-odie]

Perhaps the Arial Unicode font is not installed on the computer where
the Alt+X shortcut does not work?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Arial Unicode MS should not be required for 221A, which is present in Times
New Roman, Arial, Courier New, and many other Unicode fonts. I'm guessing
the issue truly is that this is a shortcut that doesn't work in the French
version. There is a KB article, "Not all keyboard shortcuts that are
specified in Help work as expected in Office 2003 programs" at
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=884456, that lists a number of shortcuts
that don't work as expected in French (France) and French (Canada) versions.
Alt+X is not one of the ones listed, but perhaps it should be.

 

[FelixBlumenfeld]

I must say that the Arial Unicode MS font is installed on my computer, but
not on the other computer I tried; as I said, in both cases I cannot get the
shortcut to work. I have updated my version of Word with the latest patch
(11.6359.6350, SP1) and things have not changed. As Suzanne has written,
Alt+X is missing from the list of shortcuts that are not working with French
as the default input language, but should be, I suppose. (I switched to
English as default language and I see no change.) I have left a note in the
comments area of the page referred to my Suzanne
<http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=884456>, but I have no idea how effective
this can be with Microsoft. Is there an effective way to report bugs to them
and ask that they be corrected?

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?RmVsaXhCbHVtZW5mZWxk?=,

A keyboard shortcut will also be blocked if it's assigned to a "two-step"
keyboard shorcut (Alt+X, Y for example (press Alt+X, then press y)).

Checking on my system, I see that the name of the command is
ToggleCharacterCode. I'm not sure what the French equivalent would be, but
you could try looking through the "All commands" category for it. Select it,
then press Alt+X in the "new shortcut" box.

As far as I can tell (and I checked all key assignments), Alt+X is not
assigned to any function (which is what the dialog tells me when I press
Alt+X). There is not even one macro on my system that is assigned to a key
combination. Since I could not get it to work on my colleague's machine, I
have a feeling that this key sequence is disabled. Is there a bug?

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

This reply is posted in the Newsgroup; please post any follow question or
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[Jay Freedman]

Hi Felix,

While you're waiting for Microsoft to fix the problem, you can have the
functionality by using a macro posted by MVP Klaus Linke at
http://groups.google.com/[email protected].

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Also, in case there's any confusion about the way Alt+X works, you have to
press it *after* you have typed in the character number. I find this
counterintuitive, but that's the way it works.

 

[FelixBlumenfeld]

Jay,

Thanks for the link to the macro, which solved my problem most gracefully. I
apologize for the delay; I was simply away from this problem for some time.