Overstrike for diacritics

[David Wolff]

Hi all,

I used to use overstriking ( ".\o(x,^)" ) to get special non-English
letters in Word documents. Now when I do this with "{ EQ \o(x,^) }",
Word thinks it can break the line after the overstrike stuff, even
though another ASCII character immediately follows it. This means that
words get broken in the middle. Removing the spaces within the "{}"
doesn't help.

The special letters are available in some fonts, but not in others that
I frequently want to use.

Is there a way to prevent this? Alternatively, is there another way to
get the same result as overstrike characters? I'm using Word for Mac
11.2, on OS X 10.3.5.

Thanks --

David

(Remove "xx" to reply.)

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

Don't even think of using overstrike. One overstrike character - ø - can be
typed by option-o (and Ø by shift-option-O). For all others, use the Mac OS
Character Palette: go to System Preferences/International/Input Menu (it may
be called Keyboard Menu in 10.3). Check "Character Palette" in list. (Check
languages/keyboards you commonly use too.) Check "Show input menu in menu
bar" at bottom.

Now in the main menu bar at top left you'll see a flag. While in Word, click
it and select "Show Character Palette". In "Combining Diacritical Marks"
Code Table (0300), you will find 0337 - COMBINING SHORT SOLIDUS OVERLAY and
0338 - COMBINING LONG SOLIDUS OVERLAY While the first has only a couple of
fonts, the LONG version has quite a lot of fonts (about 40). You can use
only those. Set the font in Word to one of those, then type any character
normally, then select the character 0338 (or character 0338 with font to
match your font in Word) and click Insert button:

a̸

It overlays the character you typed. It won't work except with the fonts
that have solidus overlay character. (It puts the solidus to the right of
the character instead of overlaying.)


--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[David Wolff]

Don't even think of using overstrike.

Why not? (Other than that it got broken somewhere between 5.1a and
2004.)

One overstrike character - ø - can be
typed by option-o (and Ø by shift-option-O). For all others, use the Mac OS
Character Palette: go to System Preferences/International/Input Menu (it may
be called Keyboard Menu in 10.3). Check "Character Palette" in list. (Check
languages/keyboards you commonly use too.) Check "Show input menu in menu
bar" at bottom.

Now in the main menu bar at top left you'll see a flag. While in Word, click
it and select "Show Character Palette".

For others who are interested, there are two missing steps here. Select
"Unicode" from the "View" popup, then the "Unicode Blocks" tab (or
"Unicode table", which does not show "Combining diacritical marks" but
does show things in numerical order).

In "Combining Diacritical Marks"
Code Table (0300), you will find 0337 - COMBINING SHORT SOLIDUS OVERLAY and
0338 - COMBINING LONG SOLIDUS OVERLAY While the first has only a couple of
fonts, the LONG version has quite a lot of fonts (about 40). You can use
only those. Set the font in Word to one of those, then type any character
normally, then select the character 0338 (or character 0338 with font to
match your font in Word) and click Insert button:

a̸

It overlays the character you typed. It won't work except with the fonts
that have solidus overlay character. (It puts the solidus to the right of
the character instead of overlaying.)

Circumflex and breve for me. Well, this solves my problem for new
documents, but I'm not thrilled about going back to maybe dozens of old
documents that have overstrikes in them and updating them. Any
suggestions here?

I was also concerned that many fonts don't have the right diacritics. I
solved that in the past by overstriking with a circumflex from a
different font. Eg, a "c" in Harrington plus a circumflex in Times.
This still works, in a somewhat awkward way. I can "blind select" just
the circumflex from an overlay character (the "^" in a "x^") and copy
it, then paste it after a letter in a font without the overlay
circumflex.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

Thanks --

David

(Remove "xx" to reply.)