Russian text in Word

[Tim Hunter]

We have some business colleagues in Russia that are trying to send us a word
document that is in Russian. When we open it here, all I can see is blank
lines, how can make word show the Russian text? Thank you!

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

What version of Word?

We have some business colleagues in Russia that are trying to send us a word
document that is in Russian. When we open it here, all I can see is blank
lines, how can make word show the Russian text? Thank you!

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Tim:

Any idea which version of Word they created it in? Was in actually Word
they used? In Russia, they often do not use Word to create Word documents.

Now: Which font did they use? If it is a Unicode font, and you are using
Word 2004 on the Mac, you can solve the problem. If it is not a Unicode
font, you have a problem

Cyrillic handling is ³evolving² on the Mac. We need specific details of
your and their versions of Word and operating system to address this issue.

Cheers

We have some business colleagues in Russia that are trying to send us a word
document that is in Russian. When we open it here, all I can see is blank
lines, how can make word show the Russian text? Thank you!

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Gary Goldberg]

this format, some or all of this message may not be legible.

--B_3201154526_306420
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit

We have some business colleagues in Russia that are trying to send us a word
document that is in Russian. When we open it here, all I can see is blank
lines, how can make word show the Russian text? Thank you!

Download a Cyrillic font. I find that Pryamoj Prop works for almost all Russian
text (although there are often problems if it's generated on a computer
using the Russian version of the OS).

My experience is based on using OS 9.1 and Word 98.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Gary:

I can't work out which version of Word Tim is using, let alone which version
his business associates are using.

Cyrillic is built into the Unicode fonts shipped with Word 2004, and in
Unicode, the actual text font is immaterial to this problem.

On the other hand, if they are using an earlier version of Word, then your
advice is exactly what he needs.

Cheers

Download a Cyrillic font. I find that Pryamoj Prop works for almost all
Russian
text (although there are often problems if it's generated on a computer
using the Russian version of the OS).

My experience is based on using OS 9.1 and Word 98.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Tim Hunter]

I am using Microsoft Word X for Mac Service Release 1.

Is Pryamoj Prop the name of the font?

 

[Tim Hunter]

Okay, I found the font, is there anyway to download it for free or is it
only for a fee?

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Tim:

OK, regardless of which version of Word ³they² are using, YOU need a
Cyrillic Font.

Word X can¹t do Unicode well enough to display Cyrillic out of the standard
fonts.

I assume you have read this article?
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106484

Cheers

I am using Microsoft Word X for Mac Service Release 1.

Is Pryamoj Prop the name of the font?

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Gary Goldberg]

this format, some or all of this message may not be legible.

--B_3201498569_14868805
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit

Okay, I found the font, is there anyway to download it for free or is it
only for a fee?

To tell the truth, I forget exactly where I found MY copy of Pryamoj
Prop but I know I didn't pay for it.

 

[Guest]

I am using Microsoft Word X for Mac Service Release 1.

Is Pryamoj Prop the name of the font?

Forget Pryamoy Prop; getting a non-Unicode Cyrillic probably won't solve
your problem. The issue is most likely that the Russian side is using
Word and a Unicode font, and Word X doesn't have Unicode support, which
is why you see the underscores. This is not really Microsoft's fault; at
the early point in OS X when they released Word X, the OS didn't
properly support Unicode.

Possible solutions:

1) Upgrade to Word 2004 and copy over the Windows (!) Times New Roman
fonts (there are four of them, with the extension .ttf). The Mac OS now
uses Windows fonts. I assume this would be legal if you own any copy of
a Unicode-compatible Windows OS (from 2000 on up should be safe). This
font is *much* richer than the Apple TTF-version Times New Roman that
ships with the Mac. Install the Windows fonts in any of the appropriate
places (I put them into Library/Fonts), and enjoy 100% compatibility
with mixed Russian/English documents prepared on Windows computers in
Russia.

2) If the Russian side is using pre-Unicode fonts, known as code page
1251, then by installing a code page 1251 but Mac-compatible font, I
think Word X will read these docs after you adjust the fonts. My
suggestion would be, try the ER series of fonts, which are free. You can
get them from

http://babel.uoregon.edu/yamada/fonts/russian.html

and no doubt other places. There are four faces in four encodings for
two platforms:

Architect (handwriting font)
Bukinist (Times-like, but not very polished on the screen)
Kurier (guess)
Univers (Arial-like)

The encodings are:

1251 (older Windows Cyrillic)
866 (DOS Cyrillic)
KOI8 (Unix Cyrillic)
Mac Cyrillic

If you download and install the Mac version of say ER Bukinist 1251, if
the Russian side made their docs on an older Windows system, then Word X
is likely to be able to read the encoding using this font. I haven't
tried this myself, but it often worked in OS 9 with Word 2001, for
example, and the encoding system in Word X is similar to that.

It is most likely that your Russian correspondents are using Windows XP
and the Unicode fonts therein. So your life will be much simpler if you
just upgrade to Word 2004. 2004 is also downwardly compatible with
non-Unicode fonts (with some problems and eccentricities), so it doesn't
make your entire font library redundant.

George