Display of Math or Symbol or other font

[garthoz]

I have Microsoft Word X for Mac Service 1 Release (and Microsoft PowerPoint X
for Mac Service 1 Release) -- part of Office X.

My colleagues send me Word or PowerPoint documents that they've created in
Word or PowerPoint on a Windows computer.

I'm having problems getting math fonts and other such. to display properly.
Re the math, what is odd is that it is inconsistent.

Word displayed a "?" rather than the particular symbol; when I
double-clicked the equation, it opened in Equation Editor, with the "?". I
then created a new document, chose Insert:Object and selected Equation. A new
Equation Editor window appeared. I selected the entire contents of the other
Eqn Ed window, with the "?", copied, and pasted into the new window. The
proper symbols displayed; closing that window caused the equation to appear,
properly, in the new document. What is more odd is that elsewhere in that
document (same page) almost the same equation appears, but, without any
modification, with the proper symbol instead of the "?".

When I go to Preferences and choose Compatibility and Font Substitution,
Word replies that all fonts are available.

I've since installed MathType 5.1 and now, when I double-click the equation,
it opens in Eqn Ed, then close, and the document is updated.

Ques 1 -- is there a way to have Word do this automatically for all equations?

Elsewhere in the document, I see more "?" and when I double-click, Word
replies that they are grouped objects in a picture. The only picture editing
that I can do does not change the contents but merely how the lines are
displayed, shading, ... It seems that each object in the group is a text box
but it will display nothing or a "?". Each of the objects uses one font, and
in the formatting panel, I see that the fonts are either Times New Roman
(displaying properly) or Symbol (sometimes displaying properly, sometimes
"?").

Ques 2 -- why is the symbol font not consistently displaying properly and
how can I get it to do so, automatically?

According to the Document Properties, the fonts used are Times New Roman and
Symbol. I see those two under my Font menu.

In another document, with only Garamond and Symbol, some characters do not
display. Selecting them and examining the formatting panel indicates that the
character, like its neighbors, is Garamond. These are non-mathematical
characters that are not displaying. Instead of seeing an "s" or "c" with a
cedilla or a "g" with a breve, Word only displays an underscore "_".
Double-clicking on the character merely highlights it.

Ques 3 -- how do I get those characters to automatically display given that,
again, Font Substitution indicates that all fonts used are available.

 

[CyberTaz]

I believe that one of the fundamental issues is that you are being deceived
somewhat by the manner in which fonts work [or don't]

There is a lot of discrepancy - not so much PC v. Mac so much, but actually
more on a font-by-font basis. Long story short, just because it's the same
*name* doesn't mean it contains the same *character set*. This is compounded
in your case because (I suspect) some of the fonts used in the docs are
Unicode versions and Office X apps don't support Unicode.

I don't claim to understand it well enough to explain all the behaviors you
describe, but if you don't get a sufficient answer here you may also try
posting your query in the Mac Word newsgroup:

Microsoft.public.mac.office.word

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Bob Mathews]

I have Microsoft Word X for Mac Service 1 Release (and
Microsoft PowerPoint X for Mac Service 1 Release) --
part of Office X. My colleagues send me Word or
PowerPoint documents that they've created in Word or
PowerPoint on a Windows computer. I'm having problems
getting math fonts and other such. to display properly.
Re the math, what is odd is that it is inconsistent.

Since this problem involves MathType 5.1, it's a perfect question
for our tech support department. I'll be happy to answer your
questions, but if you need support in the future, their e-mail
address is (e-mail address removed).

I use Word for Windows a lot, so if I create a document with
MathType equations that I need to send to someone who doesn't
have MathType, I can embed the fonts into my document so that
they can read the equations. This works out great, as long as the
other person is also using Windows.

The problem is that Word for Macintosh not only does not let you
embed the fonts in documents that you create, but it doesn't
recognize fonts that are embedded in Word for Windows. If your
colleague sends you a document created on Windows, Word X will
choose a font to substitute. This font may or may not contain the
characters necessary in order to properly display it.

However this font embedding business isn't as easy as that. I'll
get to that, but I'll take your specific questions one at a
time...

Ques 1 -- is there a way to have Word do this automatically
for all equations?

(To complete the picture, the question referred to updating an
equation by double-clicking it.) Actually this isn't necessary
when you use MathType 5.1. With Word open, you have a MathType
menu on the menu bar. One of the commands on this menu is
"Convert Equations". This command performs several uses, but the
most important one for you is that it will convert the equations
from Windows metafile format into Mac pict format. This will
convert all of the equations in the document with a single
command. Sometimes this happens automatically when you open the
document, but sometimes not.

Ques 2 -- why is the symbol font not consistently displaying
properly and how can I get it to do so, automatically?

Most likely because of the font embedding problems I mentioned
above. If your colleague is actually using the font "symbol.ttf"
on Windows, that one is available on the Mac and there should be
no problem, but this may not be the case. Just because your Mac
reports this font as being "Symbol" doesn't mean that's the font
your colleague used to create the expression. It just means
that's the font that was substituted when you opened the
document.

Ques 3 -- how do I get those characters to automatically
display given that, again, Font Substitution indicates that all
fonts used are available.

You solve that one by convincing your colleague to use only
common fonts -- fonts that both of you have and that your Mac
doesn't have to substitute something else for. If this isn't
possible, the other best way around this is for him to create a
PDF from the Word document. This also requires him to embed the
fonts into the PDF, but this is a different scenario than
embedding fonts into a Word document. If you need to edit the
document once you get it, this of course isn't a very good
solution.

The other problem about embedding fonts that are used in MathType
equations is that there's more to it than just checking the
"Embed TrueType fonts" checkbox in Word for Windows. The best
thing you could do is to point your colleague to this article on
our web site:

http://www.dessci.com/en/support/mathtype/tsn/TSN50.htm

The article explains collaboration in general and font embedding
specifically.

--
Bob Mathews
Director of Training
Design Science, Inc.
bobm at dessci.com
http://www.dessci.com/free.asp?free=news
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