[UniMacTech] Symbols in Word on Mac and PC

[David Wikeley]

Nice train of thought.

 Is there a serif font that acts the the same on both platforms? This is one of the biggest problems we have and would be nice to solve. At least until MS changes things again.


On 14/03/09 8:23 PM, "Allan Gadsby" <a.gadsby at cqu.edu.au> wrote:

Good point Dave, although if I’d bought an MS trailer for my Ford and an MS trailer for my Holden, I’d be hopeful that I could tow either trailer with either car and still have all the lights working properly....:).


On 13/03/09 10:24 AM, "Dave Sole" <david.sole at infotech.monash.edu.au> wrote:

Peter surely you're not taking away the fun of blaming Microsoft for this ?



Peter Stagg wrote:
>> 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 <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/ <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 <http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/>

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--
David Wikeley
IT Manager
Faculty of Health Science
University of Tasmania
43 Collins Street
Hobart, Tasmania.
T: 03 62264751
W: www.healthsci.utas.edu.au/
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