Symbols become boxes between macs

[StoneMtn]

Hi-

I have an education version of Office 2004 and use it on my laptop and
my home G5.

My home computer doesn't seem to want to display certain bullets
anymore -- including some of the auto-text arrows and such. I use -->
and ==> all the time (Word converts these to an arrow) and on my home
computer, they convert to a square rather than an arrow.

All my fonts are present on both computers, so I don't think it is a
font issue. I've also deleted all preference files.

Can anyone tell me what font the --> symbol is in, perhaps I could
replace that?

Any help on troubleshooting this would be greatly appreciated.

Stonemtn

 

[StoneMtn]

P.S. I should include that I did look at the international preferences
and input pane and didn't see anything there that wasn't on that could
help.

Thanks!

Stonemtn

 

[Kraig]

Hi Stonemtn,

This may be a long shot, but have you tried just dumping your
preference file for word11 from your user acount's library? That will
revert your word experience to the default, but may fix it if for some
reason some of the preferences got changed or corrupted. If you don't
delete the file outright you can always return it to the preference
folder if that doesn't fix the problem

Kraig

 

[Kraig]

Doh! Sorry, I saw that you had tried that just as I hit post. I
should probably read more carefully. I guess you've got me stumped.

 

[matt neuburg]

Hi-

I have an education version of Office 2004 and use it on my laptop and
my home G5.

My home computer doesn't seem to want to display certain bullets
anymore -- including some of the auto-text arrows and such. I use -->
and ==> all the time (Word converts these to an arrow) and on my home
computer, they convert to a square rather than an arrow.

All my fonts are present on both computers, so I don't think it is a
font issue. I've also deleted all preference files.

Can anyone tell me what font the --> symbol is in, perhaps I could
replace that?

This is Unicode - fonts don't matter, just characters. The symbol
generated by --> is a rightwards arrow, character U+2192, and is present
in the Apple Symbols, Apple Gothic, Arial, Lucida Grande, Times New
Roman, and Zapf Dingbats fonts, among others. Try entering it directly
from the Character Palette (as explained in my Take Control ebook on
Word 2004) and see if you can sort out what's happening. Remember, the
Symbol font itself is handled badly in Word 2004, so see if you can
force the font to be Times New Roman. m.

 

[StoneMtn]

The unicode works. I can insert from the character palette with no
problem at all. If I write --> and it converts, no matter what font I
change it to, it remains a box.

I think the real clue is I can type --> on my PowerBook and get an
arrow. Then, opening that same doc on my G5, I see a square. If I type
--> on my G5 I get a square but when I open it on my PowerBook, I see
an arrow.

The fact that I can dump a unicode rightwards arrow from the character
palette must mean something, too.

More suggestions?

Thanks

David

 

[matt neuburg]

The unicode works. I can insert from the character palette with no
problem at all. If I write --> and it converts, no matter what font I
change it to, it remains a box.

I think the real clue is I can type --> on my PowerBook and get an
arrow. Then, opening that same doc on my G5, I see a square. If I type
--> on my G5 I get a square but when I open it on my PowerBook, I see
an arrow.

The fact that I can dump a unicode rightwards arrow from the character
palette must mean something, too.

More suggestions?

Tools > AutoCorrect. m.

 

[StoneMtn]

I've looked through the AutoCorrect options, and see the --> symbol
there, but am unsure what you are suggesting to do. Could you expand
your answer a few sentences?

Thanks!

 

[matt neuburg]

I've looked through the AutoCorrect options, and see the --> symbol
there, but am unsure what you are suggesting to do. Could you expand
your answer a few sentences?

No.

Ha ha, just kidding! Well, I guess my point is that that file is what
causes something to happen when you type -->, and you are in total
command of that file, so if you don't like what happens when you type
--> you can change it. Now that you know how to enter a right-arrow
symbol the real way, it should be easy to delete the existing
autocorrect entry and make a new one. With luck, that will fix the
problem. If not, at least we'll have more data. m.