Symbol Tables

[Art]

I have Word 2000 at home and at work. At work the symbol
table has many subsets which allow many more symbols such
as hebrew letters, math symbols, arabic symbols etc. At
home I have only one table and a limited number of
symbols. Can any one help?

 

[Klaus Linke]

I have Word 2000 at home and at work. At work the symbol
table has many subsets which allow many more symbols
such as hebrew letters, math symbols, arabic symbols etc.
At home I have only one table and a limited number of
symbols. Can any one help?

Hi Art,

One, the "Insert > Symbol" dialog shows only the characters available in the
font you are currently using.
With "Arial" or "Times New Roman", you'll get more than 1000 characters.

Two (and more likely the cause for your problems), there's a small dropdown
in the lower right-hand corner that lets you choose between "Unicode (Hex)",
"ASCII (Hex)" and "ASCII (decimal)". With the latter two, the dialog will
only display characters that used to be available in the old Windows code
page 1252.

I don't think it makes sense, but that's the way it works. The bottom of the
dialog would have enough room to display all three codes (and even decimal
Unicode, which would be very handy for entering symbols with Alt+####), and
if there wasn't an ASCII code for some character, it would be obvious that
the character wasn't available in the old Windows code page (for those few
interested in that fact).

Greetings,
Klaus

 

[Klaus Linke]

the "Insert > Symbol" dialog shows only the characters

available in the font you are currently using.

Should have said "by default, and usually".
You can specify the font at the top of the dialog.
"Font: (normal text)" means the font you are currently typing in.
Sometimes, a different font is displayed in Word2002 when you open the
dialog, but I haven't figured out any rhyme or reason yet.

Klaus

 

[Art]

Hi Klaus
Thank you for responding. I can't find the dropdown table
you were referring to. Perhaps it is not in Word 2000.
Ariel and Times New Roman do not appear in the list of
fonts in the Symbol Table while they do appear in the text
group of fonts. The only font in the Symbol Table that
results in a Subset box is "(Normal Text"). At work, I can
see foreign language symbols with many more subsets. On My
system I have 9 subsets.
Thanks again
Art

 

[Klaus Linke]

Hi Art,

I can't find the dropdown table you were referring to.
Perhaps it is not in Word 2000.

Yes, it was introduced in Word2002.

Ariel and Times New Roman do not appear in the list of
fonts in the Symbol Table while they do appear in the text
group of fonts.

Strange... I thought they both always appeared in the Font dropdown of the
"Insert > Symbol" dialog.

The only font in the Symbol Table that results
in a Subset box is "(Normal Text").

As I said, "(Normal Text)" is the font you were typing in before you opened
the dialog.
If you want to see the characters in "Arial", change the font to "Arial"
before you open the dialog.
If necessary, change the font dropdown to "(normal text)".

You should then see more than nine subsets.

Greetings,
Klaus

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The font displayed when you open Insert | Symbol is the one you last
inserted a symbol from.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[Klaus Linke]

The font displayed when you open Insert | Symbol is the
one you last inserted a symbol from.

Hi Suzanne,

Thank you! I never noticed that; just was frustrated because it sometimes
showed some stupid font I had used days ago.
In 99.9% of all cases I want to insert a character from the current font,
and this "second-guessing" just gets in the way.

Klaus

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

What I find especially useful (when I remember to use it) is the MRU palette
at the bottom.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://www.mvps.org/word
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.