Symbol fonts in Word 2004

[Donald C. O'Shea]

I was dealt an unpleasant surprise when I opened a paper in Word 2004
that I had written in Word X and found that the Symbol font characters
are all italic boxes!

Any attempt to change these characters to other typefaces does not
work. Trying to insert a Symbol into the text by way of the Insert
menu or simply selecting Symbol from the Formatting Palette yields the
same results.

In PowerPoint 2004 the Symbol font works...sort of. When invoked it
shows up as an ugly san-serif version of a Greek font. Excel 2004
behaves like Word 2004.

Well, it looks like I'm back to v.X.

BTW, displaying Symbol in Font Book shows "nice" type.

If anyone can tell me what's going on and how I can remedy it, I'd
appreciate it.

Regards,
Don O'Shea

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Don:

We're not entirely sure why that's happening. Word 2004 changed from a Mac
Roman version of Symbol font to a Unicode version.

Normally there should be no problems: it should simply find the Mac version
of the character. In cases where there are, double-clicking the character
should change it into the Unicode version.

But I am trying to get some detail on what the cause is, and when I find
out, I can make a macro to fix it. I don't suppose you would like to email
me one of those documents, would you? I need the document in its "broken"
state.

You will need a password to get through my firewall: put this in the subject
line: 76f57b09

Cheers

I was dealt an unpleasant surprise when I opened a paper in Word 2004
that I had written in Word X and found that the Symbol font characters
are all italic boxes!

Any attempt to change these characters to other typefaces does not
work. Trying to insert a Symbol into the text by way of the Insert
menu or simply selecting Symbol from the Formatting Palette yields the
same results.

In PowerPoint 2004 the Symbol font works...sort of. When invoked it
shows up as an ugly san-serif version of a Greek font. Excel 2004
behaves like Word 2004.

Well, it looks like I'm back to v.X.

BTW, displaying Symbol in Font Book shows "nice" type.

If anyone can tell me what's going on and how I can remedy it, I'd
appreciate it.

Regards,
Don O'Shea

--

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

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[DavidP]

I have exactly the same problem in some, but not all documents produced
with the symbol font in Word X.

I don't know what distinguishes the files with the problem from the files
without the problem, but I have a way to reproduce the problem reliably.

1. Open Word X. Type something in a non-symbol font. (I used Times.)
Save.

2. Then highlight the text and change it to symbol font. Save.

3. Then highlight the text and change it back to the non-
symbol font (e.g. Times). Save and exit.

In Word X, everything will look fine. If you open
the file in Word 2004, you will see the little rectangles instead of the
expected characters.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I have exactly the same problem in some, but not all documents produced
with the symbol font in Word X.

I don't know what distinguishes the files with the problem from the files
without the problem, but I have a way to reproduce the problem reliably.

1. Open Word X. Type something in a non-symbol font. (I used Times.)
Save.

2. Then highlight the text and change it to symbol font. Save.

3. Then highlight the text and change it back to the non-
symbol font (e.g. Times). Save and exit.

In Word X, everything will look fine. If you open
the file in Word 2004, you will see the little rectangles instead of the
expected characters.

I think this is a Word v.X bug.

I created a document, Doc1, in Word v.X, using the Times New Roman font,
containing

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

I changed the word "brown" to Symbol font, saved it as Doc2, then
changed it back to TNR per the steps above and saved it as Doc3. As
stated, in Word v.X all Docs look fine, except for Doc3, which flags
"brown" as a spelling error.

I then opened all 3 docs in TextEdit.

Doc1 opened fine.

Doc2 opened fine, with "brown" in Symbol font (e.g., beta, rho, omicron,
omega, nu).

Doc3, OTOH, still showed the same symbols for "brown" as Doc2, did, but
the font indicated TNR.

It appears to me that Word v.X is not properly converting back to TNR
after the document was saved with Symbol font. I can't think of any
other reason for the spelling error ("brown" isn't flagged if the text
is converted back to TNR *before* saving).

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

I think this is a Word v.X bug.

I created a document, Doc1, in Word v.X, using the Times New Roman font,
containing

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

I changed the word "brown" to Symbol font, saved it as Doc2, then
changed it back to TNR per the steps above and saved it as Doc3. As
stated, in Word v.X all Docs look fine, except for Doc3, which flags
"brown" as a spelling error.

I then opened all 3 docs in TextEdit.

Doc1 opened fine.

Doc2 opened fine, with "brown" in Symbol font (e.g., beta, rho, omicron,
omega, nu).

Doc3, OTOH, still showed the same symbols for "brown" as Doc2, did, but
the font indicated TNR.

It appears to me that Word v.X is not properly converting back to TNR
after the document was saved with Symbol font. I can't think of any
other reason for the spelling error ("brown" isn't flagged if the text
is converted back to TNR *before* saving).

This was a great test to do, John. Excellent deduction!

 

[DavidP]

I get the same results as you when I open the files in TextEdit. And in Word
2004, I predict you'll get little rectangles instead of either the intended
characters or the symbols that appear in TextEdit.

Any suggestions for opening these documents in Word 2004 so that the
right characters display? No matter what version of the program the bug
was in, it's going to be a problem if older documents can't be opened in
Word 2004...

Thanks for your help!

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Any suggestions for opening these documents in Word 2004 so that the
right characters display? No matter what version of the program the bug
was in, it's going to be a problem if older documents can't be opened in
Word 2004...

I agree, but I haven't found anything yet, except to go back to Word v.X
and delete the characters that display as boxes, and then reenter them.
For this example, at least, it's made easier by the reconverted text
appearing as a spelling error - a spell check where the "erroneous" word
is replaced with the same word works OK.

FWIW, In WinWord2003, saving a file with the word "brown" converted to
Symbol font, then changing back to TNR caused 5 boxes to display
immediately - unlike within Word v.X, the reconverted characters
couldn't be displayed within Word03 at all, though you could set them
back to Symbol and recover the Beta-rho-omicron-omega-nu.

When I opened the files in Word03 that I'd created in Word v.X, I got
exactly the same displays as with Word04. So again, it appears to be a
Word v.X problem.

OTOH, I can't imagine this is going to be a common problem if it's
limited to text that has been converted to Symbol, then saved, then
converted back. However, I've no idea whether that scenario is one of a
class of larger issues.

One interesting thing that may help someone else ('cause I can't think
of how to use it):

Again, I created and saved Doc1 with

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

in Times New Roman. I changed "brown" to Symbol font and saved it as Doc
2. I then changed the symbol characters back to TNR "brown" and saved it
as Doc3. I next, still in Word v.X, did a spell check and replaced the
"brown" misspelling with "brown" and saved it as Doc4.

In Word04 I then opened each with the "Recover Text from any file"
setting and got the following in the first 2 or 3 lines (where "_"
indicates boxes):

Doc1: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Normal

Doc2: The quick b____
The quick _____ fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Normal

Doc3: The quick b____
The quick _____ fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Normal

Doc4: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Normal

Why the first line in Docs 2 & 3 are there, I've no idea.

WinWord creates similar files, as might be expected.

 

[Donald C. O'Shea]

As was pointed out in response to a companion posting to MacInTouch,
that the problem was my use of MathType for my equation setting. The
program installs its own version of the Symbol font in the Fonts
library.

I was able to retrieve the Greek fonts in my paper by copying an old
Symbol font (Version 3.5, 2000, Mac OS 9.1) into the Fonts library
folder. Not knowing which I put it in both the System Fonts library
and my User Fonts library.

I assume once Design Science figures this out, they will tell us. I
hope it doesn't take as long as MathType 5.0

My best regards,
Don O'Shea

 

[Bob Mathews]

As was pointed out in response to a companion posting to
MacInTouch, that the problem was my use of MathType for
my equation setting. The program installs its own version
of the Symbol font in the Fonts library...

I assume once Design Science figures this out, they will tell
us.

Don, you will indeed be hearing from us shortly, as will all
registered users of MathType for Macintosh. We are just about
ready to go public with a release of version 5.1, which is
compatible with Office 2004. We didn't get a copy of Office 2004
in time to make MathType 5.0 compatible with it, but we've worked
as fast as we could to get v.5.1 out. This will be a free upgrade
for registered 5.0 customers.

--
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

 

[Bob Mathews]

As was pointed out in response to a companion posting to
MacInTouch, that the problem was my use of MathType
for my equation setting. The program installs its own
version of the Symbol font in the Fonts library.

This problem was actually fixed in version 5.0a of MathType, but
that wouldn't've helped Office 2004 users. I am pleased to
announce that we have completed work on MathType version 5.1 for
Macintosh that both addresses the Symbol font problem AND is
Office 2004 compatible. This is a free upgrade for registered
users of MathType 5.0 for Mac. For details, and to download the
upgrade, see
<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

 

[OughtFour]

As was pointed out in response to a companion posting to MacInTouch,
that the problem was my use of MathType for my equation setting. The
program installs its own version of the Symbol font in the Fonts
library.

It appears to me that Word v.X is not properly converting back to TNR
after the document was saved with Symbol font. I can't think of any
other reason for the spelling error ("brown" isn't flagged if the text
is converted back to TNR *before* saving).

So I ask:

Do the above quotes describe the same problem, or two different problems
that just happen to be related to the Symbol font?

I am mostly concerned about backwards compatability with the symbol font
used in older Word documents, including 5.1, v.X, and Word 98 (Windows).

I've never installed MathType. Would Word 2004 have trouble rendering the
symbol font as used in my old documents?

Also, can I use the Symbol font in Word 2004?

Thanks, to those who know!

 

[Klaus Linke]

The macro from http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=212396 should work.

I've written a version that is probably faster for large documents,
FixTextAccidentallyUsingDecorativeFonts, which you might be able to locate
with Google.
You'll get better results if you replace
.Replacement.Font.Name = "Arial"
with
.Replacement.Font.Name = myRange.style.Font.Name
so that Word uses the current style's font.

If the text is already formatted in the proper font, you can comment out
that line altogether.

Regards,
Klaus