Overriding paragraph font

V

Vadose

I am editing in Word 2007, and sometimes need to override the paragraph font
for certain math characters. The paragraph font is Times New Roman; the new
font I want to introduce is Euclid Symbol. When I highlight the character and
change the font, it does not stay but reverts to the paragraph font. When I
delete the character, choose a font, and type the desired character, it will
stay momentarily, but will frequently be replaced by a box when I scroll back
up later.

We use these fonts to match our styles in our layout program. This is why I
am not using the usual Insert command.
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

If you insert the symbol using the Insert | Symbol dialog, Word will insert
it in a protected fashion.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org
 
V

Vadose

Is there a preference I can uncheck or something? Requiring use of the dialog
is silly for someone who needs to insert a bunch of these.
 
P

Peter T. Daniels

Is Euclid Symbol a font following the Unicode coding for mathematical
characters (as in, for instance, Cambria Math), or is it an older font
based on the Symbol font?

Symbol font somehow violates Unicode coding and doesn't interact well
with other fonts.
 
P

Peter T. Daniels

If you'd said so in the first place, the right person would have
answered!
 
B

Bob Mathews

LOL -- Yep; I found it. Not sure how much help I'll be though. We'll
see.

--
Bob Mathews
Director of Training
Design Science, Inc.
bobm at dessci.com
http://www.dessci.com/free.asp?free=news
FREE fully-functional 30-day evaluation of MathType
MathType, MathFlow, MathPlayer, MathDaisy, Equation Editor
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

Well, she did address the post to Bob Mathews of Design Science.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

If you'd said so in the first place, the right person would have
answered!
 
B

Bob Mathews

Hey there Vadose,

Back in the day, fonts had to do their thing with a maximum of 256
characters in a font (8-bit fonts). Fonts had mappings based on their
encoding. Some encodings were standardized, such as Times-Roman
(Latin), Symbol, and Dingbats. When 16-bit fonts were introduced, that
increased the maximum to 65K characters per font, though a font might
use only a few thousand (or much less) of those characters. Other
encodings were introduced, but finally Unicode came around, which
provided a standard "everyone" agreed to.

So, what does that mean in the real world? That means that fonts that
have been around a while, like Symbol and Euclid Symbol, still have
the old character mappings, BUT that doesn't necessarily mean they
can't be used side-by-side with newer 16-bit Unicode fonts. Let's take
for example the Greek lower-case pi character

--
Bob Mathews
Director of Training
Design Science, Inc.
bobm at dessci.com
http://www.dessci.com/free.asp?free=news
FREE fully-functional 30-day evaluation of MathType
MathType, MathFlow, MathPlayer, MathDaisy, Equation Editor
 
V

Vadose

MathType is behaving well. It's the Word Styles that I think are overriding
the characters in text, not in MathType eq. I think it may be that I have to
use the dialog box as Suzanne said.

Also, while I have your ear, do you know if eXstyles supports Euclid Symbol
now?
Thanks!
 
B

Bob Mathews

Hey there Vadose,

Back in the day, fonts had to do their thing with a maximum of 256
characters in a font (8-bit fonts). Fonts had mappings based on their
encoding. Some encodings were standardized, such as Times-Roman
(Latin), Symbol, and Dingbats. When 16-bit fonts were introduced, that
increased the maximum to 65K characters per font, though a font might
use only a few thousand (or much less) of those characters. Other
encodings were introduced, but finally Unicode came around, which
provided a standard "everyone" agreed to.

So, what does that mean in the real world? That means that fonts that
have been around a while, like Symbol and Euclid Symbol, still have
the old character mappings, BUT that doesn't necessarily mean they
can't be used side-by-side with newer 16-bit Unicode fonts. Let's take
for example the Greek lower-case pi character. Its Unicode "code
point" is 03C0. If you look at the character mapping in the Times New
Roman Unicode font (TNRU), pi is also in the position 03C0 within the
font.

In both Euclid Symbol and Symbol fonts, pi is in character position
70. The character in position 70 in TNRU is the lower-case p. So, if
you have a typed "p" in your document in TNRU, then you select the p
and switch to either Euclid Symbol or Symbol, the character should
change to the pi symbol. Clearly this will not work for every symbol,
and this may be the problem you're having.

Another cause of it could be if your organization has special macros
attached to Word's default template (or other template, if you're not
using the default), and the macros prevent you from arbitrarily
switching from one font to another. If, on the other hand, you had a
Word style that was set to the font you need for these symbols, this
may be allowed. I know of at least one organization that is so strict
about use of styles in Word that the font selection box is disabled.

Hope this has been of some help.

--
Bob Mathews
Director of Training
Design Science, Inc.
bobm at dessci.com
http://www.dessci.com/free.asp?free=news
FREE fully-functional 30-day evaluation of MathType
MathType, MathFlow, MathPlayer, MathDaisy, Equation Editor
 
P

Peter T. Daniels

(No, I changed the header. Bob always replies when the header
indicates it's a question about Eq.Ed. or MathType, which this turned
out to be.)
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

Ah, okay, I didn't look back to check, though I didn't think I remembered
the ATTN line before.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

(No, I changed the header. Bob always replies when the header
indicates it's a question about Eq.Ed. or MathType, which this turned
out to be.)
 

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