Font Changed To "Wingdings" And I Can't Change It Back!

[NeedHelp]

I was typing an essay for a college application. I typed most of it in a
dialog box, on Evergreen State's online application.

I then copy and pasted the essay onto a new Word 2003 Document, so I could
use spellcheck, and edit it better.

I then decided that since it was late, I would come back and put the
finishing touches on it later. At this time the text was in "Times New
Roman".

I then changed the font to "MS Reference 2", and then I changed the font to
"Wingdings 3". I did this because, I thought, if somebody in my family
wanted to read it they would have to go through the trouble of changing the
font back.

I then saved the Document, and shut down my computer.

Today, I returned to the document to finish it, but when I tried to change
the font back to "Times New Roman", it turned into a bunch of squares.

I tried some tricks like changing it to other fonts, and pasting it on
notepad, I also did a "Special Paste" and pasted it as unformated text, but
it hasn't worked.

Also, I can change the font to any "symbol" style font, and the font changes
properly. But if I try to change it to any a font that is "letters" it
changes to a bunch of boxes.

The "Style" dialog box says "Normal + Wingdings 3 (Symbol).

 

[garfield-n-odie [MVP]]

See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290978 "WD2002: Symbol
Characters Are Changed to Box Characters" (the instructions
should apply to Word 2003 as well) and
http://www.gmayor.com/installing_macro.htm .

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

If the other solution doesn't work, try selecting the text and applying
Arial Narrow Special G1.

Next time... give the document a password to open... much easier.

In Word 2003, choose Tools - Options - Security.

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

To add a little to that... formatting it as Arial Narrow Special G1 should
make the text readable. But, it might still not be usable as normal text. I
was able to make it into normal text again by copying it to the clipboard,
pasting into WordPad, applying Times New Roman, the copying back to the
clipboard, and finally pasting it into a new Word document (or elsewhere).

HTH...