Diacritic accents not displaying properly

[alientango]

hello all would appreciate if someone could help solve this puzzle.

a month or so ago, everything worked fine with the diacritic accents on letters. since then, i have not touched Word, except to lend my Mac to a friend who needed to write her CV and letters.

for the last few days, i try to type like i normally do, with the accents, and for some reason, Word automatically changes the font into Monaco and it is impossible to format it into Times New Roman or anything else that isn't sans serif. this means i can change it to Helvetica, for example, or Gill Sans or Lucida Grande, but NOT, oddly, Arial.

what on earth happened?

is it a problem with my fonts? i recently downloaded some free fonts from the internet.

is it a problem with Word? did my friend perhaps unwittingly change something and now i don't know how to fix it?

is it possible to change the encoding in Word for a document (not a Web document)?

oh yes, input on the keyboard has remained the same, nothing has changed.

some info:
Mac OSX 10.4.11
1.33 GHz PowerPC G4
1 GB DDR SDRAM

don't know what other info you might need but i'll try to supply if necessary.

can someone help please? i need to write my thesis!

thanks so much!

 

[John McGhie]

All manner of things are "possible", but I have never heard of that one
before (At least, not in Mac Word...)

Please tell us which version of Word you are running, and what is the latest
patch you have applied?

What is the name of the Style you are using?

Which format are you using to save the document?

In Word>Preferences>View, check that you do not have "Draft Font" enabled.

In Word>Preferences>Save..., what format is specified for "Save Word files
as..."?

In Word>Preferences>Compatibility... What is the "Recommended options
for..." box set to?

In that same dialog, scroll the list. If anything is checked, uncheck it.

Hope this helps

hello all would appreciate if someone could help solve this puzzle.

a month or so ago, everything worked fine with the diacritic accents on
letters. since then, i have not touched Word, except to lend my Mac to a
friend who needed to write her CV and letters.

for the last few days, i try to type like i normally do, with the accents, and
for some reason, Word automatically changes the font into Monaco and it is
impossible to format it into Times New Roman or anything else
that isn't sans serif. this means i can change it to Helvetica, for example,
or Gill Sans or Lucida Grande, but NOT, oddly, Arial.

what on earth happened?

is it a problem with my fonts? i recently downloaded some free fonts from the
internet.

is it a problem with Word? did my friend perhaps unwittingly change something
and now i don't know how to fix it?

is it possible to change the encoding in Word for a document (not a Web
document)?

oh yes, input on the keyboard has remained the same, nothing has changed.

some info:
Mac OSX 10.4.11
1.33 GHz PowerPC G4
1 GB DDR SDRAM

don't know what other info you might need but i'll try to supply if necessary.

can someone help please? i need to write my thesis!

thanks so much!

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[alientango]

hi john
thanks for replying!

did forget to mention that the text for which i need these diacritic accents is neither english nor any western languages but transliterated sanskrit. for this, i use Times CSX+.

but here are some responses to your questions:

- Please tell us which version of Word you are running, and what is the latest
patch you have applied?
- Word version 11.3.8
- patch: where do i find that information?

- What is the name of the Style you are using?
- "Normal"; and even if i "clear formatting", nothing happens.

- Which format are you using to save the document?
- .doc

- In Word>Preferences>View, check that you do not have "Draft Font" enabled.
- "Draft Font" not enabled

- In Word>Preferences>Save..., what format is specified for "Save Word files
as..."?
- save as "Word document"

- In Word>Preferences>Compatibility... What is the "Recommended options
for..." box set to?
- set to "Microsoft Word 2000-2004 and X"

- In that same dialog, scroll the list. If anything is checked, uncheck it.
- nothing is checked

uh, help? please?

 

[thg]

did forget to mention that the text for which i need these diacritic accents is neither english nor any western languages but transliterated sanskrit.for this, i use Times CSX+.

This is a special non-Unicode font, so you must have it installed and
selected for your text in order to create the accents you want. No
other font matters. Is it still there in your font list? Can you
select it, but Word will not actually use it? You might try trashing
it and downloading it and installing it again.

More generally I would recommend you switch to using Unicode for
transliterated Sanskrit if at all possible, since this is the
international standard. This would normally involve using the normal
Lucida Grande font plus the US Extended keyboard layout. Another good
font is Gandhari Unicode

http://andrewglass.org/fonts.php

The shortcuts for diacritics in US Extended can be found here:

http://homepage.mac.com/thgewecke/diacritics.html

 

[alientango]

thg: thanks for replying.

have to mention that i am using the US extended keyboard layout (hence unicode). that has not changed and was also one of the first things i checked.

Times CSX+ worked fine before. when i started having this problem, that is what i did, i.e. trash the font and reinstall it. however, the problem remains the same. so yes, Times CSX+ is still there in my font list.

the problem is NOT that the diacritic accents do not display, they do.

the problem is that Word will change all the other text (without diacritics) selected into whatever i want (be it Times CSX+ or anything else) BUT refuses to change the text *with diacritic accents* to display anything else except those i have mentioned (Monaco etc.).

any ideas? please?

 

[thg]

have to mention that i am using the US extended keyboard layout (hence unicode). that has not changed and was also one of the first things i checked.

Times CSX+ is not Unicode. It is a non-standard font that replaces
Unicode characters in the Latin-1 range with stuff needed for
sanskrit. I don't see how you could actually be using it to produce
Unicode text. Some other font would be presumably be used in its
place, even if you thought it were the one selected.

the problem is that Word ...refuses to change the text *with diacritic accents* to display anything else except those i have mentioned

Could it be that the fonts that do not work do not contain the
diacritic characters? Word might not switch fonts if that were the
case.

 

[alientango]

thg:
ok, so if Times CSX+ is not unicode, then i don't understand why it worked before and not now?

      Could it be that the fonts that do not work do not contain the diacritic
      characters? Word might not switch fonts if that were the case.






um, i'm not sure, it sounds like a plausible explanation but i'm no whiz with computers. still, that doesn't explain why Times CSX+ worked before or why Word refuses to change to Times or Times New Roman, for example. those two fonts do have all the characters and diacritic accents, don't they? or at least, my keyboard viewer says they do (and i'm not sure that is very reliable though; is there any way i can find out?).

extremely puzzling...

 

[thg]

Times or Times New Roman, for example. those two fonts do have all the characters and diacritic accents, don't they?

You need to look in Character Palette, select the characters you use
for sanskrit, and see if those fonts are listed in the Font Variation
pane. I'll have a look myself later.

 

[thg]

PS If you would like to send me a sample of your sanskrit text, I
could look at it an verify what encoding and what font is being used
for the special characters (tom at bluesky dot org).

 

[John McGhie]

You have a new fully Unicode-capable mechanism in Word 2008. It extends
most of the new goodies from Apple ATSUI (Apple Type Services for Unicode
Interface) into Word.

ATSUI was in use in Word 2004 also, but this is a big upgrade to the new
version that does ligatures as well.

If you use old non-Unicode fonts, the characters are "embedded" in the
document as "protected", and they re specified as {font + character number}
pairs. You will only get the correct character in the font specified.

Unicode will enable you to change the font for characters that are encoded
with their Unicode character numbers. But if the characters are encoded as
numbers from a specified font, it can't change the font unless you retype
the character. So it inhibits the font change

You can change the character if you delete it and re-type it as its Unicode
equivalent.

Usually, you can make the Find function find it if you copy just the
character and paste it into the Find box. And if you can, then you can use
the Replace box to replace the character with its Unicode equivalent. (This
won't work for some fonts...)

Hope this helps

thg:
ok, so if Times CSX+ is not unicode, then i don't understand why it worked
before and not now?

Could it be that the fonts that do not work do not contain the diacritic
characters? Word might not switch fonts if that were the case.






um, i'm not sure, it sounds like a plausible explanation but i'm no whiz with
computers. still, that doesn't explain why Times CSX+ worked before or why
Word refuses to change to Times or Times New Roman, for example. those two
fonts do have all the characters and diacritic accents, don't they? or at
least, my keyboard viewer says they do (and i'm not sure that is very reliable
though; is there any way i can find out?).

extremely puzzling...

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[alientango]

thg:
thanks for the tips. have sent you a sample written using Times CSX+.

john:
i'm using Word 2004 and am unfortunately unable to get a hold of Word 2008.

so, if i understand correctly, if i delete and retype the character with diacritics, Word will automatically change it to unicode embedding?

but isn’t that what has been happening automatically in my documents? because i just noticed that in my older documents written using Times CSX+, some characters with diacritics were automatically by Word changed to Times (never noticed it before).

then that is exactly what should happen for my new documents.

but something happened between my old docs and my new ones.

old docs: when using Times CSX+ to write, Word would encode the characters with diacritics into Times and everything would display properly.

now, in new docs, Word changes the characters with diacritics to Monaco and my old docs do not display them correctly anymore (blank boxes!). i don't understand this. does it have something to do with font substitution?

am so desperate, i’m considering using LaTeX but would be grateful if anyone can help me solve this puzzle since learning how to use it is extremely time-consuming… not, of course, that asking all these questions isn’t… ack.

thanks for the help so far, i’m beginning to understand, at the very least, how unicode, fonts and Word work (on a very superficial level of course!).

 

[thg]

old docs: when using Times CSX+ to write, Word would encode the characters with diacritics into Times and everything would display properly.

If you were using the US Extended keyboard layout and inputting
Unicode, Word would substitute a Unicode font for Times CSX+ for most
of the accented characters. But normally using two fonts in the same
word would not result in "proper" display.

The doc you sent me seems to be of this type, with lots of CSX for non-
accented characters and Times or Times New Roman for accented
characters.

now, in new docs, Word changes the characters with diacritics to Monaco and my old docs do not display them correctly anymore (blank boxes!).

The doc you sent me doesn't seem to have any Monaco in it.

am so desperate, i'm considering using LaTeX

You might first try a clone like NeoOffice and see if things will work
right there. Also I would not use CSX for anything if you are doing
your project in Unicode.

 

[alientango]

thank you both, thg and john, for all that effort!

still don't understand why Word used to substitute Times CSX+ for Times where the accented characters are concerned but now uses Monaco instead.

(thg: Monaco shows up in new docs, hence it doesn't show in the old doc i sent)

but maybe it doesn't matter now. getting rid of Times CSX+ and am going to use Times (or Gandhari, thanks for the link, thg!) from now on, simplify my life!

thanks again!

 

[thg]

but maybe it doesn't matter now. getting rid of Times CSX+ and am going touse Times (or Gandhari, thanks for the link, thg!) from now on, simplify mylife!

Sounds good! If you need at some point to add Devanagari, Tibetan,
Tamil, etc to your text, Word cannot yet handle that, but other apps
can do so.

 

[alientango]

oh that sounds interesting, what other apps can do that (just in case i ever need it)? and where can i find/get them?

 

[thg]

what other apps can do that (just in case i ever need it)?

Just about all OS X apps except for MS Word and Adobe products and
Mellel can do these scripts.

 

[John McGhie]

That would depend on the versions of Word concerned, and how you inserted
the characters.

In Word 2001, there was no Unicode. You either had the font with the
characters, or you did not get the characters.

Word X had a little Unicode.

Word 2004 had nearly full Unicode, but some of the Unicode functions were
not working.

Word 2008 has nearly full Unicode, and more of it works.

When you type a character, what you actually enter into the document is a
"number". A single integer, representing the position of the character. In
the old fonts, these numbers went from 0 to 512, so the font designer had to
make a choice as to which 512 characters they would include and where to put
them.

In Unicode, a font "could" contain 65,536 characters. This is enough for
almost every character ever defined in any language to have its own, unique
number. No font on the planet actually contains the full set: most don't go
above about 1,500 characters (glyphs). Arial Unicode MS contains about
32,000.

So if you type a character in Unicode, the document may contain "64,371".
If it does, that's a "ï­³" Character. The computer looks in the current font
to see if it contains character 64,371. If it does, no problem. If it
doesn't, the computer looks through the fonts to find a font that does have
that character defined in it. Note: The appearance of that character does
NOT mean that I have a font with 65,000 characters in it A typical font
will have between 500 and 1,500 characters defined, and the ID numbers of
those fonts can be chosen from anywhere between 1 and 65,536. But I do have
at least one font that has that character number defined in it (and so do
you, if you can see the character).

IF there's more that one font, Word will substitute the font closest in
appearance to the one you were using. Each font has "Family" information
encoded in it that gives a clue as to what the acceptable substitutions are.
Word contains a look-up table to determine from that, what to substitute for
what.

This table updates from version to version, as Word's ability with Unicode
improves, as Mac OS X Unicode features expand, and as the Unicode standard
itself expands.

Since I am not a font and typography expert, I can't say exactly which set
of circumstances apply to your case: but that's the reason.

For more information, see here:
http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/

Hope this helps

thank you both, thg and john, for all that effort!

still don't understand why Word used to substitute Times CSX+ for Times where
the accented characters are concerned but now uses Monaco instead.

(thg: Monaco shows up in new docs, hence it doesn't show in the old doc i
sent)

but maybe it doesn't matter now. getting rid of Times CSX+ and am going to use
Times (or Gandhari, thanks for the link, thg!) from now on, simplify my life!

thanks again!

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[alientango]

wow john, that's a fantastic explanation, thanks! helps a lot with understanding how it works.

speaking of unicode, could i just ask if anyone knows how to get rid of the compatibility check? every time i type a unicode character, Word automatically checks and the blinking red icon annoys the heck out of me. is there any way to turn it off, now that i know that "the document contains characters that might not display correctly in earlier versions of Microsoft Office for Macintosh"? i mean, i do not care if it isn't compatible, i pdf all my docs to print or to send anyway.

i'm asking since i once tried to click on the "never show again" button and the doc just refused to display all my characters, so i had to reset the compatibility check. plus, i don't want to do anything silly and end up having to troubleshoot it in the end. grateful for any help!

thanks again!

 

[John McGhie]

Thanks. It's a pretty complex mechanism

Unicode is a very powerful tool, but with great power comes an even greater
ability to get into almost all the trouble there is. Unicode works
brilliantly for those folks who "just type". Those of us who need to get a
bit more adventurous can benefit from spending a bit of time understanding
the mechanism

In Preferences>Compatibility, there's a box "Check documents for
compatibility". If you uncheck that, you will see the compatibility report
only if you ask for it.

Hope this helps

wow john, that's a fantastic explanation, thanks! helps a lot with
understanding how it works.

speaking of unicode, could i just ask if anyone knows how to get rid of the
compatibility check? every time i type a unicode character, Word automatically
checks and the blinking red icon annoys the heck out of me. is there any way
to turn it off, now that i know that "the document contains characters that
might not display correctly in earlier versions of Microsoft Office for
Macintosh"? i mean, i do not care if it isn't compatible, i pdf all my docs to
print or to send anyway.

i'm asking since i once tried to click on the "never show again" button and
the doc just refused to display all my characters, so i had to reset the
compatibility check. plus, i don't want to do anything silly and end up having
to troubleshoot it in the end. grateful for any help!

thanks again!

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[alientango]

dang, should have thought of that earlier myself.

thank you again for the help!

here's wishing you all a very happy, healthy, lucky and prosperous Chinese New Year!