Fractions created in Word Windows do not display properly in Word Mac

[Dave]

We are a small Mac based company that deals with legal documents. The
niche software that we use to create the legal documents is PC only
and uses macros to create the documents directly in Word 2000 for
Windows.

The documents contain fractions (generally just 1/2) that are always
displayed as an underscore when opened in Word X Mac (and all previous
Word incarnations). I always believed that this was a font issue, BUT
fully expected it to go away under OS X. The problem has not been
fixed in the most recent version of Word X Mac 10.1.4.

Today, just for the heck of it, I opened one of these problem .doc
documents in TextEdit under Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther). To my amazement,
the 1/2 properly displayed in the document (unfortunately there were
problems with Table of Contents, so we can't really use TextEdit as a
work around for this problem - but I'm thrilled that TextEdit can open
Word .doc documents).

I just spent a very frustrating hour trying to figure out how to email
MS about this problem (paid support kept giving me a system or network
error when I tried to enter my valid credit card information). It
frustrates me to think I have to pay $35 to report a bug when I paid
MS around $10,000 for 20 Office Mac licenses.

MS likes to advertise how there documents are TOTALLY cross platform -
but this issue has been driving us crazy and wasting lots of time for
years.

Does anyone know when this might be fixed?

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi Dave,

I suspect a font substitution problem. What font was used in the document?
How was the fraction generated? Do you have more than one copy of the font
on your computer (different versions with the same name, perhaps)?

You can report problems for free using the Feedback option from the Help
menu, but you will get a personal response that way.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

All responses should be made to this newsgroup within the same thread.
Thanks.

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http://www.mvps.org/

Search for help with the free Google search Excel add-in:
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[Mickey Stevens]

Actually, it is more likely that you will not receive a personal response to
feedback you send.

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Mickey is absolutely right. I don't know where my "not" went!

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

All responses should be made to this newsgroup within the same thread.
Thanks.

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http://www.mvps.org/

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[Dave]

Thanks for your response. The font used in Windows and on the Mac is
Times. I have done numerous testing/diagnosing of this problem over
the years. When OS X came out I even copied the Windows version of the
Times Font into Mac OS X and the problem still occurred. There is only
one version of Times installed (the old OS 9 Font has been disabled
via Font Book). I don't think it is a Font Substitiution problem. If
it was a font substitution problem and only one version of the Times
font is enabled, wouldn't TextEdit have the same problem.

Again, TextEdit opens the same Word .doc file on the same Mac with the
fractions, but opening that same document on the same Mac using MS
Word includes an _ not the fraction. This is a Word problem and I
think for the first time it's confirmed for me (I always thought it
was something else that I was missing). I believe it's MS lack of
complete support for unicode in the current version of Office X. I
just read a rumor of Office 11 (2004) and it mentions unicode support.
Does that mean this problem will go away. I hope so...

I would think MS would be embarassed when an Apple application can
open Word documents better than Word can (I say that in regards to
fractions, unfortunately, Apple's TextEdit does NOT bring over other
things such as Table of Contents correctly).

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi again,

You are correct about Unicode fonts not being supported in Office X. It does
seem like a logical progression to implement Unicode support in the next
version of Office for Macintosh. I haven't seen confirmation of the rumors,
though.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

All responses should be made to this newsgroup within the same thread.
Thanks.

About Microsoft MVPs:
http://www.mvps.org/

Search for help with the free Google search Excel add-in:
<http://www.rondebruin.nl/Google.htm>

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