Missing Symbols

[Bruce_Buchanan]

Version: v.X
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Power PC

My Bridge partner has sent me from his PC a Microsoft Word document that includes many symbols for Spades, Hearts, Diamonds and Clubs. For me these show up merely as red or black underscore dashes. His Word programme is described as Word 2000, release 9.0.2720. Can I or how can I get the symbols to appear properly?

Thanx

BB

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Bruce -

Although your description of the characters doesn't sound "typical" my first
suspicion is that it may be a font issue. Either the font used in the doc is
one that you don't have available on your Mac or the characters were
inserted as some sort of special graphic symbols. If that's the case you
probably can't do much on your end short of obtaining a compatible font or
having the originator redo the doc for you.

However, there could be at least one other possibility. Do a Command+A to
select all, then go to Format> Paragraph - Indents & Spacing. Check to see
what appears for the Line Spacing in the document. If that value appears
blank or as anything other than Single, set it to Single & see if that
allows the symbols to display. If it does you may have to adjust from there
but at least it may put you on the right track.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Tim Murray]

Version: v.X
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Power PC

My Bridge partner has sent me from his PC a Microsoft Word document that
includes many symbols for Spades, Hearts, Diamonds and Clubs. For me these
show up merely as red or black underscore dashes. His Word programme is
described as Word 2000, release 9.0.2720. Can I or how can I get the symbols
to appear properly?

Thanx

BB

In Word's Preferences, check the Compatibility tab to see if your system is
missing the font used by the author.

 

[Bruce_Buchanan]

Thanx for this. Unfortunately it does not do the business. Curiously, on my wife's iBook running Leopard (with same Office suite) the symbols don't show up as before, but they do on the Mail prog. Quick Look feature.

BB

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Bruce:

Ask him which font he used. Chances are it's an old non-Unicode version of
something.

If he were using a Unicode font, the symbols would simply appear without you
having to do anything.

The Monotype Sorts font has the symbols you are looking for. If you insert
them from a Unicode font, they will work fine on his PC and your Mac.

Cheers

Thanx for this. Unfortunately it does not do the business. Curiously, on my
wife's iBook running Leopard (with same Office suite) the symbols don't show
up as before, but they do on the Mail prog. Quick Look feature.

BB

--
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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]

 

[Bruce_Buchanan]

Thanx for this.

I asked him and he said this-

"My documents all use a TrueType font called Times New Roman. When I use Word, the symbols are inserted by clicking on 'Insert' then on 'Symbol'. Word then produces an array of symbols accompanied by a Font box containing '(normal text)'. When I select the symbol e.g for Hearts, the screen bottom says 'Insert Times New Roman Character Unicode 2665'. I hope that helps."

Does this get us any further forward?

BB

 

[Elliott Roper]

Thanx for this.

I asked him and he said this-

"My documents all use a TrueType font called Times New Roman. When I use
Word, the symbols are inserted by clicking on 'Insert' then on 'Symbol'. Word
then produces an array of symbols accompanied by a Font box containing
'(normal text)'. When I select the symbol e.g for Hearts, the screen bottom
says 'Insert Times New Roman Character Unicode 2665'. I hope that helps."

Does this get us any further forward?

Yes. His version of Word is newer than yours. (Earlier you said v.X
right?) His uses Unicode fonts.
Your version of Word does not. You would have to get the card suit
characters from a symbol font.
I don't think there is any neat way to force the right symbols from his
version of Word to yours, but I have been wrong before.

The easy way for you to fix things would be to install a copy of Word
2004 or 2008. There are plenty of other good reasons for doing so.

Each of them come with up-to-date Times New Roman with more Unicode
characters than you would care to think about without pharmacological
assistance.

If you don't want to pay for Office again, you could try opening the
file with TextEdit. You might need to get a unicode TNR font, at the
risk of messing up your Word's view of it. Your bridge buddy's PC one
should work, but be aware that nicking fonts is naughty. (I do it all
time, but I'm *really* naughty)

 

[Bruce_Buchanan]

Yes, this looks like it.

TextEdit produces all the symbols in the right place. Document format is all to pot, of course, but that's not the point.

A friend (with a PC) thought that somewhere I could change 'Western' characters for 'Microsoft', but I can find nowhere for that to happen.

So it looks like a new version of Office. I knew it would come down to money.

Thanx for the pointer.

BB

 

[Bruce_Buchanan]

No, but wait. Here's a thing. If I get the doc up on TextEdit, highlite, copy and paste into a new Word doc, it arrives complete with Symbols and then I have a malformed version of the original in which the symbols did not appear.

Does this alter the price of fish?

BB

 

[CyberTaz]

The fish market remains unchanged Elliott's nailed the problem. What
you've confirmed is simply that even TextEdit is more Unicode-savvy than
Word X - it's smart enough to go looking for the necessary characters rather
than throwing up its hands in dismay.

It is truly time to abandon X in favor of a newer model - at least to 2004
even if you don't want to go for 2008 I've seen the Standard upgrade for
Office 2004 as low as $99.97 US in just a brief Google search.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac