Strange, negatively spaced character in a slide!

[Dave Jenkins]

I received a slide that has a strange character, that's difficlt to get rid
of, and also hard to identify. If you go here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?yai7ecybjgb you can download a single slide with a
short string of characters. Take a look at what appears between the 'f' and
the 'g' It looks like a period (excep it's below the baseline - WTH?). If
you select it and hit the delete key, the space after that character gets
deleted, and the "period" moves one position to the left!

Getting rid of it turns out to be easy, but non-obvious: if you cursor
slowly towards the g, you can see that immediately before the cursor is at
the 'g' position, it's poised just a sliver before the 'g' -- if you hit the
delete key then, the weird character is removed.

We have received two files from the same guy with this problem. How did
such a character get in there, do you suppose? And what *is* that character?
I tried to display its ascii value in the debugger, and got a -4046 - what
the heck is *that* all about?

Anyway, if someone could explain this, I'd be grateful - thanks!

 

[Dave Jenkins]

I see that about a dozen of you have downloaded the example file I referenced
below. Are you all seeing the same behavior that I'm reporting? If not,
please let me know, so that I can concentrate on local causes for the mystery.

If you *do* see the strange behavior - any ideas at all as to what it is?
What have you done to try to figure it out? Any meaningful results you can
report?

Thanks!

 

[Echo S]

I don't know if this helps or not, but here's what I see.

http://screencast.com/t/oEayPJ14

If you go to Home | Replace | Replace Fonts, you'll see a slew of 'em listed
there. I'm almost betting it's a symbol or something from MS Mincho, or
maybe one of the Wingdings sets, that PPT doesn't know what to do with.

Ahhh, if I hover over MS Mincho in the font dropdown list (just the regular
font list on the Home tab), it turns into a bullet. Your user has selected
it as a bullet point -- but why it shows up as a box, I've no idea. A few of
the other Asian and Arabic fonts make it show up as various symbols -- maybe
something to do with installed languages? Heck, I dunno -- out of my depth
here.

 

[Enric Mañas]

Dave,

Seeing it...

;-)

It is a "Combining dot below". You'll find it at the "Combining Diacritical
Marks" subset of Unicode fonts.

(Insert > Symbol)

Very cordialmente

Enric

 

[Dave Jenkins]

Bingo! (I think.)

I had a brainstorm: When I first received the file, it was a .ppt. Then I
thought: I wonder if I saved it as a .pptx I could then examine the .xml to
see what's happeneing at that point. And I *do* see some MS Mincho in
between the two Arial strings. Being ignorant, however, I didn't pursue it
much further than that, because I didn't know what the heck "MS Mincho" was
to begin with.

I did try to remove some of the .xml (*really* flying blind) but that didn't
seem to remove the character, so I abandoned that avenue.

Your answer, and the one above, have cleared things up immeasurably -
thanks, Echo.
--
Dave Jenkins
K5KX

I don't know if this helps or not, but here's what I see.

http://screencast.com/t/oEayPJ14

If you go to Home | Replace | Replace Fonts, you'll see a slew of 'em listed
there. I'm almost betting it's a symbol or something from MS Mincho, or
maybe one of the Wingdings sets, that PPT doesn't know what to do with.

Ahhh, if I hover over MS Mincho in the font dropdown list (just the regular
font list on the Home tab), it turns into a bullet. Your user has selected
it as a bullet point -- but why it shows up as a box, I've no idea. A few of
the other Asian and Arabic fonts make it show up as various symbols -- maybe
something to do with installed languages? Heck, I dunno -- out of my depth
here.

 

[Dave Jenkins]

Hi Enric:

Thanks! I can reproduce the behavior in question by inserting the Arial
Combining Dot Below character.

I cannot find that diacritical in Arial Narrow, but after I insert the
combining character into some Arial text, I can change the font of that text
to Arial Narrow - why is that?


--
Dave Jenkins
K5KX

Dave,

Seeing it...

;-)

It is a "Combining dot below". You'll find it at the "Combining Diacritical
Marks" subset of Unicode fonts.

(Insert > Symbol)

Very cordialmente

Enric

 

[Echo S]

Ah, great. Glad we could put you on the right track, anyway!

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP] http://www.echosvoice.com
What's new in PPT 2007? http://www.echosvoice.com/2007.htm
Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances http://tinyurl.com/36grcd
PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover Kit http://tinyurl.com/32a7nx

Bingo! (I think.)

I had a brainstorm: When I first received the file, it was a .ppt. Then
I
thought: I wonder if I saved it as a .pptx I could then examine the .xml
to
see what's happeneing at that point. And I *do* see some MS Mincho in
between the two Arial strings. Being ignorant, however, I didn't pursue
it
much further than that, because I didn't know what the heck "MS Mincho"
was
to begin with.

I did try to remove some of the .xml (*really* flying blind) but that
didn't
seem to remove the character, so I abandoned that avenue.

Your answer, and the one above, have cleared things up immeasurably -
thanks, Echo.
--
Dave Jenkins
K5KX

I don't know if this helps or not, but here's what I see.

http://screencast.com/t/oEayPJ14

If you go to Home | Replace | Replace Fonts, you'll see a slew of 'em
listed
there. I'm almost betting it's a symbol or something from MS Mincho, or
maybe one of the Wingdings sets, that PPT doesn't know what to do with.

Ahhh, if I hover over MS Mincho in the font dropdown list (just the
regular
font list on the Home tab), it turns into a bullet. Your user has
selected
it as a bullet point -- but why it shows up as a box, I've no idea. A few
of
the other Asian and Arabic fonts make it show up as various symbols --
maybe
something to do with installed languages? Heck, I dunno -- out of my
depth
here.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP] http://www.echosvoice.com
What's new in PPT 2007? http://www.echosvoice.com/2007.htm
Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances http://tinyurl.com/36grcd
PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover Kit http://tinyurl.com/32a7nx

I received a slide that has a strange character, that's difficlt to get
rid
of, and also hard to identify. If you go here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?yai7ecybjgb you can download a single slide
with
a
short string of characters. Take a look at what appears between the
'f'
and
the 'g' It looks like a period (excep it's below the baseline - WTH?).
If
you select it and hit the delete key, the space after that character
gets
deleted, and the "period" moves one position to the left!

Getting rid of it turns out to be easy, but non-obvious: if you cursor
slowly towards the g, you can see that immediately before the cursor is
at
the 'g' position, it's poised just a sliver before the 'g' -- if you
hit
the
delete key then, the weird character is removed.

We have received two files from the same guy with this problem. How
did
such a character get in there, do you suppose? And what *is* that
character?
I tried to display its ascii value in the debugger, and got a -4046 -
what
the heck is *that* all about?

Anyway, if someone could explain this, I'd be grateful - thanks!

 

[Dave Jenkins]

In re: the box - doesn't PPT display that box character when it has thrown up
its hands in digital disgust? It does in the debugger, IIRC.

It certainly renders just fine on my PC - I wonder why the difference? Go
here to see what I see:

http://screencast.com/t/X1vbrxubdp

I may have been a little exuberant in my MS Mincho remarks. Go here to see
some of the .xml in that .pptx file - "MS Mincho" is all over the place:

http://screencast.com/t/yusSzp8F8d

I'm not XML-savvy enough to decipher all of that - can you? I don't see
anything in in that snippet that says that character is to get any special
treatment. I've done some rudimentary searching of the xml to find out where
the character is involved but don't really know what I'm looking for. Any
ideas?


--
Dave Jenkins
K5KX

I don't know if this helps or not, but here's what I see.

http://screencast.com/t/oEayPJ14

If you go to Home | Replace | Replace Fonts, you'll see a slew of 'em listed
there. I'm almost betting it's a symbol or something from MS Mincho, or
maybe one of the Wingdings sets, that PPT doesn't know what to do with.

Ahhh, if I hover over MS Mincho in the font dropdown list (just the regular
font list on the Home tab), it turns into a bullet. Your user has selected
it as a bullet point -- but why it shows up as a box, I've no idea. A few of
the other Asian and Arabic fonts make it show up as various symbols -- maybe
something to do with installed languages? Heck, I dunno -- out of my depth
here.

 

[Enric Mañas]

Dave,

Thanks! I can reproduce the behavior in question by inserting the Arial
Combining Dot Below character.
Great!

;-)

I cannot find that diacritical in Arial Narrow, but after I insert the
combining character into some Arial text, I can change the font of that
text to Arial Narrow - why is that?

Not all fonts have the same characters. Not all the characters "occupy" the
same place at any given font.

Start a new ppt
Change all fonts to Arial Narrow
Save it
Check again with Replace fonts which Fonts are in the presentation.

Introduce an Arial "Combining Dot Below"

Check the Fonts

There will be Arial Narrow and Arial at the list of used Fonts...

Delete the Dot

Only Arial Narrow remains

1. You can't (will not be able to) replace the Arial by Arial Narrow (using
"Replace fonts") as long as the "Combining Dot Below" is *there* (in the
text) because it is Arial (but if you select the text or the box of the text
it will tell you that it is Arial Narrow).

2. You can test it also using "Combining Dot Below" with Arial Unicode MS,
the dot is slightly different... the behaviour is the same...

Very cordialmente

Enric
--
Enric Mañas [MS MVP PowerPoint]

Hi Enric:

Thanks! I can reproduce the behavior in question by inserting the Arial
Combining Dot Below character.

I cannot find that diacritical in Arial Narrow, but after I insert the
combining character into some Arial text, I can change the font of that
text
to Arial Narrow - why is that?


--
Dave Jenkins
K5KX

Dave,

Seeing it...

;-)

It is a "Combining dot below". You'll find it at the "Combining
Diacritical
Marks" subset of Unicode fonts.

(Insert > Symbol)

Very cordialmente

Enric
--
Enric Mañas [MS MVP PowerPoint]


"Dave Jenkins" <[email protected].(spam-ugh!)> escribió en el
mensaje

I see that about a dozen of you have downloaded the example file I
referenced
below. Are you all seeing the same behavior that I'm reporting? If
not,
please let me know, so that I can concentrate on local causes for the
mystery.

If you *do* see the strange behavior - any ideas at all as to what it
is?
What have you done to try to figure it out? Any meaningful results you
can
report?

Thanks!
--
Dave Jenkins
K5KX


:

I received a slide that has a strange character, that's difficlt to
get
rid
of, and also hard to identify. If you go here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?yai7ecybjgb you can download a single slide
with a
short string of characters. Take a look at what appears between the
'f'
and
the 'g' It looks like a period (excep it's below the baseline -
WTH?).
If
you select it and hit the delete key, the space after that character
gets
deleted, and the "period" moves one position to the left!

Getting rid of it turns out to be easy, but non-obvious: if you cursor
slowly towards the g, you can see that immediately before the cursor
is
at
the 'g' position, it's poised just a sliver before the 'g' -- if you
hit
the
delete key then, the weird character is removed.

We have received two files from the same guy with this problem. How
did
such a character get in there, do you suppose? And what *is* that
character?
I tried to display its ascii value in the debugger, and got a -4046 -
what
the heck is *that* all about?

Anyway, if someone could explain this, I'd be grateful - thanks!

 

[Dave Jenkins]

Thank you, Enric. Very concise and easily understood.
--
Dave Jenkins
K5KX

Dave,

Thanks! I can reproduce the behavior in question by inserting the Arial
Combining Dot Below character.
Great!

;-)

I cannot find that diacritical in Arial Narrow, but after I insert the
combining character into some Arial text, I can change the font of that
text to Arial Narrow - why is that?

Not all fonts have the same characters. Not all the characters "occupy" the
same place at any given font.

Start a new ppt
Change all fonts to Arial Narrow
Save it
Check again with Replace fonts which Fonts are in the presentation.

Introduce an Arial "Combining Dot Below"

Check the Fonts

There will be Arial Narrow and Arial at the list of used Fonts...

Delete the Dot

Only Arial Narrow remains

1. You can't (will not be able to) replace the Arial by Arial Narrow (using
"Replace fonts") as long as the "Combining Dot Below" is *there* (in the
text) because it is Arial (but if you select the text or the box of the text
it will tell you that it is Arial Narrow).

2. You can test it also using "Combining Dot Below" with Arial Unicode MS,
the dot is slightly different... the behaviour is the same...

Very cordialmente

Enric
--
Enric Mañas [MS MVP PowerPoint]

Hi Enric:

Thanks! I can reproduce the behavior in question by inserting the Arial
Combining Dot Below character.

I cannot find that diacritical in Arial Narrow, but after I insert the
combining character into some Arial text, I can change the font of that
text
to Arial Narrow - why is that?


--
Dave Jenkins
K5KX

Dave,

Seeing it...

;-)

It is a "Combining dot below". You'll find it at the "Combining
Diacritical
Marks" subset of Unicode fonts.

(Insert > Symbol)

Very cordialmente

Enric
--
Enric Mañas [MS MVP PowerPoint]


"Dave Jenkins" <[email protected].(spam-ugh!)> escribió en el
mensaje
I see that about a dozen of you have downloaded the example file I
referenced
below. Are you all seeing the same behavior that I'm reporting? If
not,
please let me know, so that I can concentrate on local causes for the
mystery.

If you *do* see the strange behavior - any ideas at all as to what it
is?
What have you done to try to figure it out? Any meaningful results you
can
report?

Thanks!
--
Dave Jenkins
K5KX


:

I received a slide that has a strange character, that's difficlt to
get
rid
of, and also hard to identify. If you go here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?yai7ecybjgb you can download a single slide
with a
short string of characters. Take a look at what appears between the
'f'
and
the 'g' It looks like a period (excep it's below the baseline -
WTH?).
If
you select it and hit the delete key, the space after that character
gets
deleted, and the "period" moves one position to the left!

Getting rid of it turns out to be easy, but non-obvious: if you cursor
slowly towards the g, you can see that immediately before the cursor
is
at
the 'g' position, it's poised just a sliver before the 'g' -- if you
hit
the
delete key then, the weird character is removed.

We have received two files from the same guy with this problem. How
did
such a character get in there, do you suppose? And what *is* that
character?
I tried to display its ascii value in the debugger, and got a -4046 -
what
the heck is *that* all about?

Anyway, if someone could explain this, I'd be grateful - thanks!

 

[Enric Mañas]

Dave ,

The MS Mincho *comes* (is there) because the ppt was created on a Mac with a
PowerPoint:mac version...

Have a look at

This presentation might contain Far East (or Asian) text and formats that
PowerPoint can't display
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00287.htm

to get rid of the MS Mincho

http://www.pptools.com/starterset/FAQ00033.htm

Very cordialmente

(Note to myself: write to SR)

Enric
--
Enric Mañas [MS MVP PowerPoint]

In re: the box - doesn't PPT display that box character when it has thrown
up
its hands in digital disgust? It does in the debugger, IIRC.

It certainly renders just fine on my PC - I wonder why the difference? Go
here to see what I see:

http://screencast.com/t/X1vbrxubdp

I may have been a little exuberant in my MS Mincho remarks. Go here to
see
some of the .xml in that .pptx file - "MS Mincho" is all over the place:

http://screencast.com/t/yusSzp8F8d

I'm not XML-savvy enough to decipher all of that - can you? I don't see
anything in in that snippet that says that character is to get any special
treatment. I've done some rudimentary searching of the xml to find out
where
the character is involved but don't really know what I'm looking for. Any
ideas?


--
Dave Jenkins
K5KX

I don't know if this helps or not, but here's what I see.

http://screencast.com/t/oEayPJ14

If you go to Home | Replace | Replace Fonts, you'll see a slew of 'em
listed
there. I'm almost betting it's a symbol or something from MS Mincho, or
maybe one of the Wingdings sets, that PPT doesn't know what to do with.

Ahhh, if I hover over MS Mincho in the font dropdown list (just the
regular
font list on the Home tab), it turns into a bullet. Your user has
selected
it as a bullet point -- but why it shows up as a box, I've no idea. A few
of
the other Asian and Arabic fonts make it show up as various symbols --
maybe
something to do with installed languages? Heck, I dunno -- out of my
depth
here.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP] http://www.echosvoice.com
What's new in PPT 2007? http://www.echosvoice.com/2007.htm
Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances http://tinyurl.com/36grcd
PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover Kit http://tinyurl.com/32a7nx

I received a slide that has a strange character, that's difficlt to get
rid
of, and also hard to identify. If you go here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?yai7ecybjgb you can download a single slide
with
a
short string of characters. Take a look at what appears between the
'f'
and
the 'g' It looks like a period (excep it's below the baseline - WTH?).
If
you select it and hit the delete key, the space after that character
gets
deleted, and the "period" moves one position to the left!

Getting rid of it turns out to be easy, but non-obvious: if you cursor
slowly towards the g, you can see that immediately before the cursor is
at
the 'g' position, it's poised just a sliver before the 'g' -- if you
hit
the
delete key then, the weird character is removed.

We have received two files from the same guy with this problem. How
did
such a character get in there, do you suppose? And what *is* that
character?
I tried to display its ascii value in the debugger, and got a -4046 -
what
the heck is *that* all about?

Anyway, if someone could explain this, I'd be grateful - thanks!

 

[Dave Jenkins]

Thanks again, Enric. This is really interesting stuff!
--
Dave Jenkins
K5KX

Dave ,

The MS Mincho *comes* (is there) because the ppt was created on a Mac with a
PowerPoint:mac version...

Have a look at

This presentation might contain Far East (or Asian) text and formats that
PowerPoint can't display
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00287.htm

to get rid of the MS Mincho

http://www.pptools.com/starterset/FAQ00033.htm

Very cordialmente

(Note to myself: write to SR)

Enric
--
Enric Mañas [MS MVP PowerPoint]

In re: the box - doesn't PPT display that box character when it has thrown
up
its hands in digital disgust? It does in the debugger, IIRC.

It certainly renders just fine on my PC - I wonder why the difference? Go
here to see what I see:

http://screencast.com/t/X1vbrxubdp

I may have been a little exuberant in my MS Mincho remarks. Go here to
see
some of the .xml in that .pptx file - "MS Mincho" is all over the place:

http://screencast.com/t/yusSzp8F8d

I'm not XML-savvy enough to decipher all of that - can you? I don't see
anything in in that snippet that says that character is to get any special
treatment. I've done some rudimentary searching of the xml to find out
where
the character is involved but don't really know what I'm looking for. Any
ideas?


--
Dave Jenkins
K5KX

I don't know if this helps or not, but here's what I see.

http://screencast.com/t/oEayPJ14

If you go to Home | Replace | Replace Fonts, you'll see a slew of 'em
listed
there. I'm almost betting it's a symbol or something from MS Mincho, or
maybe one of the Wingdings sets, that PPT doesn't know what to do with.

Ahhh, if I hover over MS Mincho in the font dropdown list (just the
regular
font list on the Home tab), it turns into a bullet. Your user has
selected
it as a bullet point -- but why it shows up as a box, I've no idea. A few
of
the other Asian and Arabic fonts make it show up as various symbols --
maybe
something to do with installed languages? Heck, I dunno -- out of my
depth
here.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP] http://www.echosvoice.com
What's new in PPT 2007? http://www.echosvoice.com/2007.htm
Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances http://tinyurl.com/36grcd
PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover Kit http://tinyurl.com/32a7nx


I received a slide that has a strange character, that's difficlt to get
rid
of, and also hard to identify. If you go here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?yai7ecybjgb you can download a single slide
with
a
short string of characters. Take a look at what appears between the
'f'
and
the 'g' It looks like a period (excep it's below the baseline - WTH?).
If
you select it and hit the delete key, the space after that character
gets
deleted, and the "period" moves one position to the left!

Getting rid of it turns out to be easy, but non-obvious: if you cursor
slowly towards the g, you can see that immediately before the cursor is
at
the 'g' position, it's poised just a sliver before the 'g' -- if you
hit
the
delete key then, the weird character is removed.

We have received two files from the same guy with this problem. How
did
such a character get in there, do you suppose? And what *is* that
character?
I tried to display its ascii value in the debugger, and got a -4046 -
what
the heck is *that* all about?

Anyway, if someone could explain this, I'd be grateful - thanks!