[UniMacTech] Symbols in Word on Mac and PC

[Peter Stagg]

>> Hi folks
>> We have a user writing grant applications in both Word 2007 on a PC and 
Word
>> 2007 on a MacBook but some of the symbols are disappearing when 
switching
>> from on the other. If she uses the Greek Ï’, for example, in Word 2008 
then
>> opens in Word 2007, the symbol is replaced with a box, and the same 
happens
>> the other way, and for some other symbols, too. I have found a few 
threads
>> on Google, but no real solutions, apart from using LaTex or PDF. The 
grant
>> has to be submitted as a Word doc, apparently.
>> Has anyone found a way around this?
>> Thanks
>> Al
> Response from user-:
> Al
> I have done it in two ways.  The first was via “insert ->symbol” 
which was
> how I had always done it.  These did a disappearing trick in the PC-Mac
> exchanges. When I put them back in on the Mac by this process, they 
seemed
> to be fine and had been writing away merrily when right before my eyes, 
I
> saw word go through automatically and take them all out – quite odd. 
Then I
> went onto the word help for inserting symbols and it suggested using the
> objects palette and select symbols.  This I diligently did, but when I 
open
> on or send to a PC, these disappear too.  I thought Office had gotten 
over
> compatibility problems.
> Thanks
> Jennelle

Ok this is a font problem - the square box indicated the selected font 
does not have or is missing (never had to begin with - is corrupted and 
lost) the glyph inserted which isn't as bad a seeing a question mark take 
the place of the character you really want (this is trouble).

The solution is make sure you use a *Unicode* font that is installed on 
both systems. Arial Unicode MS (not plane Arial) and Lucida Sans Unicode, 
form memory, are the two most complete Unicode fonts. There should be 
little or no difference between these fonts on the two platforms if they 
are from the same era (same release of office for Mac/PC). Make sure you 
don't inset characters from Non-Unicode/Symbols fonts (the old 256 
character, TrueType, fonts) for example **Symbol**.

For complete compatibility you can down-load a font like Douolus SIL from 
http://tinyurl.com/6ashzy for both systems. This font looks a lot like 
Times New Roman and contains all symbols required for the International 
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and then some (not sure how complete its coverage 
of Greek Letters is but I'd be surprised if it didn't have all the glyphs 
you need). 

Remember also that fonts are a resource separate from the document. If you 
need to send the doc electronically its best to embed the fonts used in 
the document (look in the options panels) you can usually choose between 
embedding only the symbols you've used or the entire font. The first is 
preferable as Unicode fonts can be huge and the size of your document will 
blow out completely. 

-- 
Regards,

Peter Stagg
Faculty Webmaster
Arts Information Technology
University AUC Representative <http://www.auc.edu.au/>

Faculty of Arts
Monash University, VIC 3800, Australia
Building 11, Clayton Campus, Wellington Road, Clayton
Telephone +61 3 9905 1221 Facsimile +61 3  9905 5117
Mobile 0407 865 159
Email peter.stagg at arts.monash.edu.au
http://www.arts.monash.edu.au
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