Symbol font problem, PPTX to PPT2004

[Martin Forrester]

Can anyone please reproduce this problem I'm having...

Presentations created in PPTX, containing the Symbol font, where the
characters were just typed and formatted as Symbol font (as opposed to
inserted by "Insert Symbol"). When they open in PPT2004 the characters
display as a font other than Symbol, although selecting them reveals that
PPT2004 still thinks they are Symbol font, it's just not displaying them
that way. Simply typing over them makes them display as Symbol. Symbol font
characters inserted with "Insert Symbol" in PPTX don't seem to have this
problem.

I have a LOT of presentations from PPTX that use Symbol font, and this is
going to prevent me from using them in 2004 without a lot of editing.

Thanks,
Martin

 

[whsmith]

I observe the same thing. It is a
serious bug in Power Point 2004 and I can only hope it can be
addressed by Microsoft and Apple. It is easy to demonstrate.
Open a blank presentation in Power Point X (not 2004) write
a line in any symbol font (Apple's symbol font for example).
Save the file. Open the file in Power Point 2004. The characters
will not display properly. I have also had confirmation of this
bug from MathType technical support.

 

[Bob Mathews]

I observe the same thing. It is a serious bug in Power Point
2004 and I can only hope it can be addressed by Microsoft
and Apple. It is easy to demonstrate. Open a blank
presentation in Power Point X (not 2004) write a line in any
symbol font (Apple's symbol font for example). Save the file.
Open the file in Power Point 2004. The characters will not
display properly. I have also had confirmation of this bug
from MathType technical support.

Yes, but I suspect that confirmation is over a week old. This is
a problem that was fixed with version 5.0a of MathType, but that
version wasn't compatible with Office 2004. Last week we released
version 5.1 of MathType for Macintosh, which both fixes the
Symbol font problem and is Office 2004 compatible. This is a free
upgrade for registered owners of MathType 5.0 and 5.0a. You can
download it here:

<http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/mtm_newversion.htm>
--
Bob Mathews (e-mail address removed)
Director of Training 830-990-9699
http://www.dessci.com/free.asp?free=news
FREE fully-functional 30-day evaluation of MathType 5
Design Science, Inc. -- "How Science Communicates"
MathType, WebEQ, MathPlayer, MathFlow, Equation Editor, TeXaide

 

[Martin Forrester]

Yes, but I suspect that confirmation is over a week old. This is
a problem that was fixed with version 5.0a of MathType, but that
version wasn't compatible with Office 2004. Last week we released
version 5.1 of MathType for Macintosh, which both fixes the
Symbol font problem and is Office 2004 compatible. This is a free
upgrade for registered owners of MathType 5.0 and 5.0a. You can
download it here:

<http://www.dessci.com/en/products/mathtype/mtm_newversion.htm>

I'm aware of the problem with the Symbol font from the old MathType, but I
don't have MathType. This PowerPoint symbol problem seems to be less
reported than the MathType related one, but I've heard from several people
who see the problem in PowerPoint 2004 with various symbol fonts (not just
"Symbol") when opening old PowerPoint files.

 

[Tim Murray]

Presentations created in PPTX, containing the Symbol font, where the

characters were just typed and formatted as Symbol font (as opposed to
inserted by "Insert Symbol"). When they open in PPT2004 the characters
display as a font other than Symbol, although selecting them reveals that
PPT2004 still thinks they are Symbol font, it's just not displaying them
that way.

I wonder if the "type" of Symbol has bearing. For many years I've never used
the Symbol suitcase from Apple. In pre-OSX days, it was garbage: They
included both Type 1 and TrueType in the same suitcase, and then didn't give
you any accompanying outline Type 1 files, to boot. (This is the same for
many of their suitcases, by the way).

As a result, I use only a real Type 1 Symbol from Adobe. In OSX, I don't even
use the Symbol.dfont, either. My instances of Symbol always seem to work,
between versions on the same platform and between platforms as well.

 

[Robot]

Any response from MS on this? This is messing up about a hundred users
here in my department.

 

[Martin Forrester]

Any response from MS on this? This is messing up about a hundred users
here in my department.

I haven't heard anything from MS or anybody else about a fix for this. It's
a show-stopper for me. I'm amazed more people aren't up in arms about this.
By the way, the bug seems to apply to files created in various Windows PPT
versions also.

Martin