Euro Symbol SNAFU in Word 2004...

[Mike Ellard]

I often use Word to type in ancient languages such as Hellenistic Greek
and Biblical Hebrew.

One of the fonts I use has a common Greek letter (epsilon with a rough
breathing mark) which is accessed by typing Option-Shift-2. This
always worked appropriately in previous versions of Word, but in Word
2004 they've installed a "feature" which makes it impossible to access
this character.

For some reason, whenever I type Option-Shift-2, Word switches the font
to Times New Roman and displays a Euro symbol. Not that this isn't a
very pretty symbol, but it's not the character I need. To make things
worse, the font remains changed to Times New Roman, so that anything I
type after that is no longer in the ClassicalGreek font that I was
using, and I have to manually switch the font back to ClassicalGreek.
No matter what I do, Word won't let me reformat the Euro symbol back
into the ClassicalGreek font, so there's no longer a way to access this
character in Word - I may have to switch to another Word processor.

How can I turn this "feature" off? It makes Word 2004 completely
unusable for sophisticated language work.

 

[matt neuburg]

I often use Word to type in ancient languages such as Hellenistic Greek
and Biblical Hebrew.

One of the fonts I use has a common Greek letter (epsilon with a rough
breathing mark) which is accessed by typing Option-Shift-2. This
always worked appropriately in previous versions of Word, but in Word
2004 they've installed a "feature" which makes it impossible to access
this character.

For some reason, whenever I type Option-Shift-2, Word switches the font
to Times New Roman and displays a Euro symbol. Not that this isn't a
very pretty symbol, but it's not the character I need. To make things
worse, the font remains changed to Times New Roman, so that anything I
type after that is no longer in the ClassicalGreek font that I was
using, and I have to manually switch the font back to ClassicalGreek.
No matter what I do, Word won't let me reformat the Euro symbol back
into the ClassicalGreek font, so there's no longer a way to access this
character in Word - I may have to switch to another Word processor.

How can I turn this "feature" off? It makes Word 2004 completely
unusable for sophisticated language work.

The problem is that you're using an old-fashioned font that simply
substitutes characters at keyboard positions. But Mac OS X / Word 2004
is Unicode. You don't need a special font; in fact, you don't even have
to switch fonts. And indeed you mustn't do it that way, since, as you
have discovered, it causes problems. With Unicode, you switch keyboard
layouts (all this is very fully explained in my ebook on Word 2004, but
you can get along fine without it). There are several excellent (free)
keyboard layouts suitable for Ancient (or Hellenistic) Greek. Contact me
offline and I'll email you some pointers to some of them. m.

 

[Mike Ellard]

No, Matt, the problem is not the font. The font works perfectly in
other applications under OS X. It also worked perfectly in Microsoft
Word X under OS X. The font is perfectly fine -- it's not appropriate
to try to blame the font for what's really a problem with Microsoft
Word 2004.

To repeat, the problem is that Microsoft Word won't let me use the font
for this one special character, and keeps changing text in my preferred
font into another font. I need a way to turn this behavior off. I
didn't ask for it, I don't need it, and I don't want it. If for some
reason I need to make the Euro symbol while typing in ancient Greek,
I'm perfectly capable of changing the font myself.

As for switching fonts just so that I can be using a cool unicode font,
that would be great if I didn't have lots of work already done using my
current font. I want to be able to continue to use the documents I
already have, cut and paste between them, and edit them as necessary,
without Microsoft Word corrupting the text I've already typed in.

This is a real and serious problem for people like me. I don't mind
this "feature" for the people who want it, but the rest of us need a
way to be able to turn it off.

Sincerely,

Michael Patrick Ellard

 

[matt neuburg]

No, Matt, the problem is not the font. The font works perfectly in
other applications under OS X.

In all other applications? What about TextEdit?

It also worked perfectly in Microsoft
Word X under OS X.

That's not evidence - Word X wasn't Unicode-savvy. Word 2004 is.

The font is perfectly fine -- it's not appropriate
to try to blame the font for what's really a problem with Microsoft
Word 2004.

To repeat, the problem is that Microsoft Word won't let me use the font
for this one special character, and keeps changing text in my preferred
font into another font. I need a way to turn this behavior off. I
didn't ask for it, I don't need it, and I don't want it. If for some
reason I need to make the Euro symbol while typing in ancient Greek,
I'm perfectly capable of changing the font myself.

As for switching fonts just so that I can be using a cool unicode font,
that would be great if I didn't have lots of work already done using my
current font. I want to be able to continue to use the documents I
already have, cut and paste between them, and edit them as necessary,
without Microsoft Word corrupting the text I've already typed in.

This is a real and serious problem for people like me. I don't mind
this "feature" for the people who want it, but the rest of us need a
way to be able to turn it off.

Sincerely,

Michael Patrick Ellard

I think the issue is partly whether it's better to complain or to learn.
Anyhow, fine, it's not the font, there's no such thing as Unicode. I
withdraw the offer of personal assistance. m.

 

[Andreas Prilop]

On 23 May 2005, Mike Ellard wrote:

[Font ClassicalGreek]

No, Matt, the problem is not the font. The font works perfectly in
other applications under OS X. It also worked perfectly in Microsoft
Word X under OS X. The font is perfectly fine -- it's not appropriate
to try to blame the font for what's really a problem with Microsoft
Word 2004.

The font ClassicalGreek *is* the problem. It only gives you the illusion
of working. In fact, ClassicalGreek is not a Unicode font. But you
need a Unicode font for polytonic Greek. Such a typeface is, e.g.
Palatino Linotype.

Test your fonts here:
http://ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/~flavell/unicode/unidata1F.html

 

[Klaus Linke]

Hi Mike,

Can't you perhaps assign another shortcut to that Greek letter (select it, open "Insert > Symbol")?
It's a pain to get used to another shortcut, but at least you can keep using your font.

Regards,
Klaus

 

[Mike Ellard]

Hi, Klaus!

Nope, that doesn't work. If you open the Symbol palette, it just shows
you the Euro symbol where the episilon with rough breathing mark should
be. This was a useful hint, though, since going through the symbol
palette reveals that the same sort of substitution is also happening
with about another dozen characters -- this is just the first one that
I ran into.

I'm investigating another fix with the help of some folks from
PlanetMUG. I'll report back here if I find something that works.

Thanks for your suggestion!

Sincerely,

Michael Patrick Ellard

 

[Mike Ellard]

TextEdit has a similar problem, but not quite as bad as Word's.

If you type "ABCD [Option-Shift-2] EFG" in Text Edit, it will change
the Option-Shift-2 into a Euro Symbol, but it won't change the font for
anything you type after it (i.e. "EFG" will still be in your original
font).

In Word, it changes both the symbol and everything you type after it
into a new font (i.e. "EFG" will be in a different font than "ABCD").

So both are broken in terms of using special fonts like this, but Word
is more broken than TextEdit.

-----

As for your comment about whether it is better to complain or learn, I
don't think that's actually the issue. This is actually a case of a
difference between what the programmers intended and what the user
needs. It may be that the behaviors exhibited are exactly what the
programmers intended -- if so, good for them. However, as a long-time
user, the program does not currently fulfill my needs. Bottom line,
Word 2004 can no longer do what Word X and many other applications do
extremely well.

This may be a triumph for the programmers, but it is not a boon to
users like me.

In all fairness, I think Unicode is great, and I'm pleased to see new
applications supporting it. However, I wish more thought had been
given to users who have documents in older fonts.

Sincerely,

Michael Patrick Ellard