Footnotes turned squares, page numbers corrupted

[Sven]

Hi,

I'm using MS Word 2004 (Mac) v. 11.5. on OS X 10.5.5. One day I opened
the document I'm working on again and noticed... well, since pictures
say more than a thousand words, I described my problem here:
http://bustspammers.com/Word_Footnote_Squares.html

I can insert new footnotes and they will appear correctly, even with
the correct number among the existing but unreadble footnotes. So I
could reinsert all footnotes, but if I delete the old "squared" ones,
the referenced text is gone too and I have to re-copy/paste everything
by hand. This is a long doc with over 100 footnote, so I'd like to
avoid that. Besides, who knows if the issue comes back. Same for thei
weird page numbers.

Is there a simpler way to fix this? My ideas (style issues, field
codes) have run out...

Thanks!
Sven

 

[Clive Huggan]

Hello Sven,

I've looked at the example you uploaded.

The squares indicate that Word cannot display the character.

I've found that since the ATSUI interface was instigated (with Word 2004),
Word is not happy with Times. It is not a Unicode font; it is actually
rather old now, pre-dating OS X.

My suggestion is that you define footnotes, and footnote numbering, in Times
New Roman.

Take a look at pages 159-160 of some notes on the way I use Word for the
Mac, titled "Bend Word to Your Will", which are available as a free download
from the Word MVPs' website
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html). Then look at the
specifications on page 173 that I have used for my footnote text style, and
the body text style "bt" that precedes it in the table, on which the
footnote text style is based. [Important: please note that I have
inadvertently omitted "bt" from the second column (the "based on" style) --
I had not noticed the omission before; I'll correct it in a new edition that
I'm working on. Less importantly: "Style for next paragraph" should be
"footnote text".]

I don't list my specifications for footnote references in Bend Word to Your
Will: it's "Default paragraph font + Font 7 pt, raised by 3 pt".

You may find additional useful information in the article 'Styles and
templates ‹ the keys to consistency and saving time' starting on page 89.

The specifications and techniques quoted above have been proven in years of
very heavy use of Word, not only by me (in strategic planning documents with
heavy use of footnotes, among other things) but also my colleagues in this
newsgroup who have contributed many ideas.

One other thing: tracking changes may also be causing problems: see page 67.

[Note: "Bend Word to your will" is designed to be used electronically and
most subjects are self-contained dictionary-style entries. If you decide to
read more widely than the item I've referred to, it's important to read the
front end of the document -- especially pages 3 and 5 -- so you can select
some Word settings that will allow you to use the document effectively.]

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from the Americas and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
====================================================

 

[Sven]

Hello Sven,

I've looked at the example you uploaded.

The squares indicate that Word cannot display the character.

I've found that since the ATSUI interface was instigated (with Word 2004),
Word is not happy with Times. It is not a Unicode font; it is actually
rather old now, pre-dating OS X.

My suggestion is that you define footnotes, and footnote numbering, in Times
New Roman.

Thanks for quick answer and the link to the book.

However, if Word generally couldn't handle Times, then wouldn't it
always display wrongly? As I wrote, I can insert new footnotes with the
Times font and the show up fine. Before this corruption(?) happened,
the current footnotes also showed fine. And it's very weird that I
can't change the font of existing footnotes, neither with the
formatting palette, not the Font menu, nor Format->Font..., nor via
Styles. Finally, it doesn't really explain the issue with the page
numbers.

I'll use Times New Roman or another font in the future, no problem, but
is there any way to save my current doc without having to go through

100 footnotes manually?

Thx,
Sven

 

[John McGhie]

I believe Clive is correct:

The square box means "Character not available in this font". Since the
character is not available, we cannot see what it is supposed to be. It
looks to be like a space character of some kind.

If you change the font to Time New Roman (or any other Unicode font) you
should then be able to see what the character is meant to be.

Footnote and End-note numbering are not user-accessible in Word 2008. If
they go wrong, you can't fix them.

You can try a Maggie, which will sometimes repair the entire series, but
don't get your hopes up:

The Maggie:

1. Create a new blank document
2. Carefully select all of the text in the bad document EXCEPT the last
paragraph mark
3. Copy it.
4. Paste in the new document.
5. Save under a new file name and close all, then re-open.

This technique for de-corrupting is known as "Doing a 'Maggie'", after
Margaret Secara from the TECHWR-L mailing list, who first publicised the
technique.


Sorry.

Thanks for quick answer and the link to the book.

However, if Word generally couldn't handle Times, then wouldn't it
always display wrongly? As I wrote, I can insert new footnotes with the
Times font and the show up fine. Before this corruption(?) happened,
the current footnotes also showed fine. And it's very weird that I
can't change the font of existing footnotes, neither with the
formatting palette, not the Font menu, nor Format->Font..., nor via
Styles. Finally, it doesn't really explain the issue with the page
numbers.

I'll use Times New Roman or another font in the future, no problem, but
is there any way to save my current doc without having to go through

Thx,
Sven

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[Sven]

I believe Clive is correct:

The square box means "Character not available in this font". Since the
character is not available, we cannot see what it is supposed to be. It
looks to be like a space character of some kind.

Thanks for the reply, but I think you overlooked that I wrote that I
can insert new footnotes with the same settings (simple numbers in
Times, no space of some kind) and they show fine. They also showed fine
before; it didn't start out like this. I changed my page to make that
clearer:
http://bustspammers.com/Word_Footnote_Squares.html
If it was a missing character issue, it would *never* show up, right?

If you change the font to Time New Roman (or any other Unicode font) you
should then be able to see what the character is meant to be.

Again, I wrote in earlier post and on my page, that I'm unable to
change the font.

Footnote and End-note numbering are not user-accessible in Word 2008. If
they go wrong, you can't fix them.

As I wrote, I'm using Word 2004.

You can try a Maggie, which will sometimes repair the entire series, but
don't get your hopes up:

Thanks for the tip. Didn't help. The footnotes are still squared.

I kinda resigned myself to the fact that I may have to go through and
change the page numbers and over 100 footnotes one-by-one by hand.
Bummer. Unless anybody knows a better fix...

Cheers,
Sven

 

[Elliott Roper]

Thanks for the reply, but I think you overlooked that I wrote that I
can insert new footnotes with the same settings (simple numbers in
Times, no space of some kind) and they show fine. They also showed fine
before; it didn't start out like this. I changed my page to make that
clearer:
http://bustspammers.com/Word_Footnote_Squares.html
If it was a missing character issue, it would *never* show up, right?

What an excellent problem report!

I think McGhie might be right. Those boxes are almost certainly a
'character unavailable'

Your screenshot shows the font for the style "footnote reference" to be
Times. It is not impossible that you have more than one Times on your
machine, and one of them may be corrupt. Also, Times is a *very*
dangerous font to use with Office, especially with Office 2004 and
later. They expect Unicode fonts. If your Mac or its ancestors from
which you inherited fonts of old had been running an earlier version of
Office, it is just possible that you have Apple Extended versions of
Times and Times New Roman on your machine.

Office 2004 installation utterly vandalises your font folders. It may
place copies of Times New Roman and several other Microsoft fonts on
your machine with lower version numbers and earlier creation dates than
the non-Unicode fonts they are supposed to replace. A careful exercise
with FontBook, where you choose the font with the largest file size
regardless of date and version number might be needed.

I say 'may' because although it happened to me, it may not happen to
everyone. I choose to run in a non-admin account and hold my commonly
used fonts in my personal library. That confused the hell outta Office
2004 when I first ran it.

Now to test whether this has anything to do with you, I suggest you try
modifying the styles of footnote reference and footnote text to use a
guaranteed Unicode font. Do this on a copy, and don't agree to save
your changed normal when next you exit Word, and you won't make
anything worse than it is now. Wait! Better would be to copy your
normal (you will find it in ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/ in
flagrant disregard for Apple Human Interface Guidelines) then compress
the copy and hide it somewhere safe before you start.

Again, I wrote in earlier post and on my page, that I'm unable to
change the font.

I *think* there might be something else wrong if you can't change the
font of footnote text, although you might need to modify the style for
footnote reference, since you can't directly edit the reference number
anyway. (Format È Style.. is where to do it) (Your screenshot showed
'footnote reference' as the style in use, so I hold out some hope

As I wrote, I'm using Word 2004.



Thanks for the tip. Didn't help. The footnotes are still squared.

I kinda resigned myself to the fact that I may have to go through and
change the page numbers and over 100 footnotes one-by-one by hand.
Bummer. Unless anybody knows a better fix...

Your unrecognised characters in the page number text is a bit of a
puzzle. Maybe Word is trying to use old-style figures in a non-unicode
font. I don't know how, but I'm clutching at straws for why that could
go wrong. Try the same trick of modifying the style, which, unless I
long ago changed it, should be called "Page Number"

If any of this works, please write back. I'm a bit rusty on Word now,
but that looked like such an interesting mess <more grin>

 

[Clive Huggan]

Hello Sven,

Sorry I haven't been able to re-join the thread until now -- different time
zone, and out at mind-numbing conference all day.

I fully agree with John and Elliott.

To stand back a moment: the suspicion is that your problem involves one or
more of at least 3 elements: the Unicode aspect, a styles problem, and
document corruption.

The Unicode aspect is easy to overcome if you agree to go along with the
recommendation to use Times New Roman. Even if it isn't involved in your
particular problem, it would be wise to change to Times New Roman anyway as
long as you use Word 2004 or later, for reasons Elliott has described.

Document corruption is most likely to be fixed by the "Maggie" that John
described, although there are other possible corruption solutions.

Whether there is a styles problem can be determined if you read the pages I
pointed out in "Bend Word to Your Will" and compare with the styles you have
modified and applied. I have helped people before (not on this newsgroup)
who have had problems with footnotes (without the font problem) and the
problems have nearly always been solved by fixing the styles after "doing a
Maggie".

By now you will perhaps have realized that the full extent of your problem
is very unusual and I can only suggest that you persist along these three
lines until one of the possible cures fixes it. Post back when you have more
to report. You may need to send the document for one of us to have a look at
it; but don't do that yet.

Clive Huggan
============

 

[John McGhie]

No, I did not overlook that. But I didn't want to type out half a page to
explain it, either

Let me be very cryptic:

Word holds the "design" for automatically generated list text in a structure
named a "List Template". This is not visible from the user interface, you
can access it only programmatically.

Among other things, the List Template specifies the Font to be used for the
bullets or numbering in the list item (but not for the rest of the text, the
rest of the text font is specified in the style).

If you insert a new footnote in an old document, Word will apply the List
Template stored in the document to that new footnote.

If the font specified is "Times" Word will ask the System for the font
currently in-use named "Times". It asks for it by name.

If the font currently in use on your computer is a Unicode font with the
latest WGL4 character set, the character will be rendered correctly. That
would happen if your computer is using a later version of Times, or is
substituting Times New Roman Unicode, or if the font in use in the List
Template is "not" Times.

Footnotes generated in an older version of Word on an older computer may
have used a non-Unicode version of Times. Which doesn't have the character.
So Word would code the character in a font that was available on that
computer and did have the character. But is not available on the current
computer.

That's the cryptic version: Alan Wood is the acclaimed guru for all things
Unicode, and his website is here:
http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/

Cheers

Thanks for the reply, but I think you overlooked that I wrote that I
can insert new footnotes with the same settings (simple numbers in
Times, no space of some kind) and they show fine. They also showed fine
before; it didn't start out like this. I changed my page to make that
clearer:
http://bustspammers.com/Word_Footnote_Squares.html
If it was a missing character issue, it would *never* show up, right?



Again, I wrote in earlier post and on my page, that I'm unable to
change the font.



As I wrote, I'm using Word 2004.



Thanks for the tip. Didn't help. The footnotes are still squared.

I kinda resigned myself to the fact that I may have to go through and
change the page numbers and over 100 footnotes one-by-one by hand.
Bummer. Unless anybody knows a better fix...

Cheers,
Sven

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]