Foreign Languages in Excel

[JMM]

Hello.

I am working on a multi-lingual project using non-roman characters
including Japanese, Chinese, Russian and Arabic.

The translators are sending me excel files that they've written in
their own laguage, but I can't make the characters display on my
english version. All I get is a series of dotted lines.

I have the fonts installed in my computer (and can display Russian,
Chinese, Arabic and Japanese characters in Text Edit for OSX), but not
in Excel.

Also, if I try to copy and paste from Excel to Text Edit, I still only
get the dotted lines.

Help!

-- J.M.M.

 

[Jim Gordon]

Hi JMM,

What version of Excel are you using? What operating system?

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

All responses should be made to this newsgroup within the same thread.
Thanks.

About Microsoft MVPs:
http://www.mvps.org/

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<http://www.rondebruin.nl/Google.htm>

 

[JMM]

Jim --

Thanks for writing back.

I'm using Mac OSX 10.2.8 and Microsoft Office X, Excel X for Mac
Service Release 1.

Since I originally posted, I was able to export the spreadsheet to
Unicode text,
then I can open it in Mac's Text Edit (which supports Unicode) and it
shows the non-roman
characters.

So they're in there somewhere. It's just that I can't get Excel to
display them.

Hope you can help!

-- J.M.M.

 

[Edwin Tam (MS MVP)]

My computer is English Mac OS X and Office X English version, and my system has Chinese and Japanese fonts and input methods installed

I think the things should be noted is
1) Excel X allows binary character inputs
2) If the Chinese characters are typed in Windows Excel, there is no way you can display them in Excel X
3) If the characters are typed in Excel X, you may try to change to an Asian font to have the characters displayed properly

Sometimes, it's funny that, for Chinese characters, if Chinese font cannot do, you choose a Japanese font and they can be displayed properly

Overall, compatibility problem which can never be perfectly resolved..

Good Luck

Regards
Edwin Ta
(e-mail address removed)

 

[JMM]

Edwin --

Thank you for your advice. I had a feeling there was a basic
compatability issue.

Is there a program in Windows that they could enter the unicode fonts
that Mac can read? Like a Windows equivalent of Mac's Text Edit, which
can display multiple unicode fonts easily?

I was hoping they could save their translations as an .rtf and then I
could open them in Text Edit.

They have already tried cutting and pasting from Excel to Word and it
didn't work – even from one Microsoft Office application to another!

Thank you again.

-- John-Michael