insert symbols does not work

[fergyo.ian]

I am having problems with insert symbol - every symbol I insert is
shown as a square. Somehow it seems the symbols have been disabled.
I have OS 10.4.10
MS Word for Mac 2004 version 11.3.5 (O70413)

I tried a range of symbols, and a range of fonts to see if the problem
was specific to any of these, but no joy.
The symbols on the number keys still work ok - maybe they have a
different source.

Any help would be appreciated

cheers.

 

[John McGhie]

Make sure you have not inadvertently turned your Number Lock on, on your
keyboard...

Check that the Symbol font is installed and enabled...

I am having problems with insert symbol - every symbol I insert is
shown as a square. Somehow it seems the symbols have been disabled.
I have OS 10.4.10
MS Word for Mac 2004 version 11.3.5 (O70413)

I tried a range of symbols, and a range of fonts to see if the problem
was specific to any of these, but no joy.
The symbols on the number keys still work ok - maybe they have a
different source.

Any help would be appreciated

cheers.

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John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Auckland, New Zealand
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[fergyo.ian]

Make sure you have not inadvertently turned your Number Lock on, on your
keyboard...

Check that the Symbol font is installed and enabled...






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John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltdhttp://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Auckland, New Zealand
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

Thanks John,
Unfortunately the number lock was off. That would have been too easy!

I looked in Fontbook.
The Symbol font and others like MT Extra are in there, but they dont
show the same range of characters as is shown available in the 'insert
symbol' menu. Interestingly, from 'insert symbol' I can insert the
characters that are matched in the Fontbook file, but the rest still
show as squares. I looked at a previous thread on a similar
problem,but that seemed to involve conflict issues different to my
situation.

The weird thing is that I have used the symbol font characters before
- the files still show those characters, but now I cant insert the
same characters even into those old files. Something must have
switched them off. That's why the number lock key would have made
sense (not that I understand the connection).
Somehow a trial version of Word appeared - could it have been set up
with a restricted range of symbol characters and could it have
overwritten the older font files?
Would it be cleaner to just delete all versons and re-install Word
2004?

Thanks for any time & thought you can put to it.
Cheers.

 

[Elliott Roper]

The weird thing is that I have used the symbol font characters before
- the files still show those characters, but now I cant insert the
same characters even into those old files. Something must have
switched them off. That's why the number lock key would have made
sense (not that I understand the connection).
Somehow a trial version of Word appeared - could it have been set up
with a restricted range of symbol characters and could it have
overwritten the older font files?

....and completely ruined your paid-for copy while it was at it.
The Microsoft Office Trial is the work of the devil.

Would it be cleaner to just delete all versons and re-install Word
2004?

Normally no. Under these circumstances, yes. Be sure to get rid of
everything with the "Remove Office" application to be found at
/Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Additional Tools/Remove Office/
Do read the about file there, and perhaps also the troubleshooting
advice at
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html
about the evil trial version.
For safety, make a zipped backup of each of your existing font libraries
at
~/Library/Fonts
and
/Library/Fonts
before you start. (I'm deeply suspicious of Word's installation playing
fast and loose with fonts, particularly after I have customised my per
user font libraries Ñ Word may install a duplicate in /Library/Fonts
without asking my permission.

Be sure to dance the update office threestep after you install from
your CD.

 

[fergyo.ian]

...and completely ruined your paid-for copy while it was at it.
The Microsoft Office Trial is the work of the devil.


Normally no. Under these circumstances, yes. Be sure to get rid of
everything with the "Remove Office" application to be found at
/Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Additional Tools/Remove Office/
Do read the about file there, and perhaps also the troubleshooting
advice athttp://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html
about the evil trial version.
For safety, make a zipped backup of each of your existing font libraries
at
~/Library/Fonts
and
/Library/Fonts
before you start. (I'm deeply suspicious of Word's installation playing
fast and loose with fonts, particularly after I have customised my per
user font libraries Ñ Word may install a duplicate in /Library/Fonts
without asking my permission.

Be sure to dance the update office threestep after you install from
your CD.

Thanks for the tips and the good humour Elliot,
I'll do it staight away. As I looked through the applications, I
actually found 2 instances of the Mac Office trial!
Cheers

 

[janmorren]

Well, we do have the same problems, but I found a quick solution to
the problem.

Apparently, Office 2004 installs its own set of fonts, and I think
there is a misunderstanding between the system fonts and the fonts
from office 2004 for Mac.

Solution:
Open Fontbook from the Applications folder
Select the "All Fonts". Their you'll find the Symbol font, and open
the triangle, and you'll find (normally) Plain, Regular, Symbol.
Well, this "normal" situation is not found in the user fontset, with
the people who have problems. Only Symbol is found, which is not the
complete set.
You select the Plain from the All fonts, and drag it to the User icon.
In this way, you'll find the Plain in the User->Symbol font.

Relaunch Word, and you'll find everything as it should be.

Once I had to Spotlight "Symbol font". Double clicked on the
Symbol.dfont in the resultpane of Spotlight.
You'll get a Font window, where you see "Plain" on top (in a dropdown
menu).
There is a "Install this font" button in the lower right corner.

This does it everytime with my people (a lab of 220 people).

good luck
Jan

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Jan:

This sounds like a very valuable solution, and I would love to understand it
better.

In the Symbol font, I have only one face installed: "Regular". Is that what
you meant?

Are you saying that users who have this problem have no faces appearing
within the Symbol font?

That would certainly do it, wouldn't it

Cheers


On 11/10/07 6:52 PM, in article
(e-mail address removed), "(e-mail address removed)"

Well, we do have the same problems, but I found a quick solution to
the problem.

Apparently, Office 2004 installs its own set of fonts, and I think
there is a misunderstanding between the system fonts and the fonts
from office 2004 for Mac.

Solution:
Open Fontbook from the Applications folder
Select the "All Fonts". Their you'll find the Symbol font, and open
the triangle, and you'll find (normally) Plain, Regular, Symbol.
Well, this "normal" situation is not found in the user fontset, with
the people who have problems. Only Symbol is found, which is not the
complete set.
You select the Plain from the All fonts, and drag it to the User icon.
In this way, you'll find the Plain in the User->Symbol font.

Relaunch Word, and you'll find everything as it should be.

Once I had to Spotlight "Symbol font". Double clicked on the
Symbol.dfont in the resultpane of Spotlight.
You'll get a Font window, where you see "Plain" on top (in a dropdown
menu).
There is a "Install this font" button in the lower right corner.

This does it everytime with my people (a lab of 220 people).

good luck
Jan

Sounds like you may have the old pre-unicode version(s) of those fonts on
the system.

Yes, the Office Test Drive is evil, and should be removed, as Elliott says.

After that, make sure the version of the fonts from Office 2004 gets
installed, and make sure you do not have any older versions of those fonts
enabled.

Many of the Microsoft and Apple fonts were re-worked for Office 2004 to
provide a much wider range of characters, with the introduction of Unicode
to the applications.

This can also be a "preferences" error. Word maintains a list of which
fonts are considered "Symbol" fonts. If the real fonts you want to use are
not in that list, you will get this problem.

The square box simply means "No glyph at that character number in the font
in use." I don't suppose the font in use could somehow have been changed to
something weird, could it?

I hate these problems

"(e-mail address removed)"





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John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltdhttp://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Auckland, New Zealand
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

--
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, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]