Missing characters

[Billman]

Why won't Word display all the characters in a standard PostScript
font?

I know the characters are there, since they work fine under System 8
and Word 5.1 with the exact same font (yes, the same font files). In
Word/Office X, the Symbol insert window shows blank squares where
characters should be. Like alt-X (approximate) or alt-V (square
root), both of which I NEED. I have not had much trouble with
accented (double-stroke) characters.

 

[Ramón G Castañeda]

Why won't Word display all the characters in a standard PostScript
font?

I know the characters are there, since they work fine under System 8
and Word 5.1 with the exact same font (yes, the same font files). In
Word/Office X, the Symbol insert window shows blank squares where
characters should be. Like alt-X (approximate) or alt-V (square
root), both of which I NEED. I have not had much trouble with
accented (double-stroke) characters.

Check the creation and modification dates on those Tye 1 fonts. There will
be problems with some old fonts.

It might be that really old fonts that use the "FONT" resource instead of
the "NFNT" resource won't work. But NFNT was invented back in the late 80s
or very very early 90s.

Apple tried to make "FONT" resource based fonts not work in some version of
Mac OS around version 8.x, and then had to issue a patch because it broke
too many fonts.

 

[Andreas Prilop]

Why won't Word display all the characters in a standard PostScript
font?
I know the characters are there, since they work fine under System 8
and Word 5.1 with the exact same font (yes, the same font files). In
Word/Office X, the Symbol insert window shows blank squares where
characters should be. Like alt-X (approximate) or alt-V (square
root), both of which I NEED.

These characters are *not* part of "standard PostScript fonts".
See "Symbol Font Substitution (Macintosh)" at
http://partners.adobe.com/asn/tech/type/chrsten.jsp

 

[Billman]

These characters are *not* part of "standard PostScript fonts".
See "Symbol Font Substitution (Macintosh)" at
http://partners.adobe.com/asn/tech/type/chrsten.jsp

i consider any character that recurs across a wide variety of
PostScript fonts from major foundries, appropriately scaled for each
font (as opposed to an often unstyled character like TM or R/circle),
to be some kind of standard, the opinion of any one brand-name
notwithstanding. I find it hard to believe that everyone from
Bitstream to AGFA to Letraset included those characters just for the
heck of it.

I should add that the two characters I used for examples work fine in
TextEdit under OSX. Doesn't that point to Word as the culprit?

 

[J.E. McGimpsey]

i consider any character that recurs across a wide variety of
PostScript fonts from major foundries, appropriately scaled for each
font (as opposed to an often unstyled character like TM or R/circle),
to be some kind of standard, the opinion of any one brand-name
notwithstanding. I find it hard to believe that everyone from
Bitstream to AGFA to Letraset included those characters just for the
heck of it.

I should add that the two characters I used for examples work fine in
TextEdit under OSX. Doesn't that point to Word as the culprit?

Could you be a little more explicit about the problem?

When I type opt-X or opt-V I get the ‰ (approximate) and ˆ (radical)
sign in almost every text font I tried in Word v.X. The
Insert/Symbol dialog shows both the correct characters and their
keyboard shortcuts.

 

[Andreas Prilop]

Did you read this document?

i consider any character that recurs across a wide variety of
PostScript fonts from major foundries, appropriately scaled for each
font (as opposed to an often unstyled character like TM or R/circle),
to be some kind of standard,

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
We wrote of "standard PostScript fonts", not of "some kind of standard".
The so-called AdobeStandardEncoding does *not* include your characters.
http://www.google.com/search?q=AdobeStandardEncoding
Such characters are mapped in from the Symbol font - at least for
Adobe PostScript fonts.

I find it hard to believe that everyone from
Bitstream to AGFA to Letraset included those characters just for the
heck of it.

AFAIK these companies also sell their PostScript fonts in Adobe
Standard Encoding; check the AFM files if you've got them.

I should add that the two characters I used for examples work fine in
TextEdit under OSX. Doesn't that point to Word as the culprit?

Sorry, don't know.

 

[Billman]

Could you be a little more explicit about the problem?

When I type opt-X or opt-V I get the ? (approximate) and ? (radical)
sign in almost every text font I tried in Word v.X. The

Well, using any of my commercial PostScript fonts (including such as
Minion, Charter, Palatino) I get a blank space when I hit alt-X or
alt-V. If I highlight those blanks and switch to a TrueType font, the
expected symbols appear.

I opened the Symbols window and tried viewing those fonts there. It
shows only blanks for alt-X and alt-V, and clicking them tells you the
keystroke but does not generate a character.

The several PS fonts I tried, including the three above, all work fine
under older OS's and past versions of Word.