Q116260 - WD: Symbols Map Incorrectly Between MacWord 5.x and WinWord 2.x

WD: Symbols Map Incorrectly Between MacWord 5.x and WinWord 2.x

Q116260

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Word for Windows, versions 2.0, 2.0a, 2.0a-CD, 2.0b, 2.0c, 2.0c-CD
Microsoft Word for the Macintosh, versions 5.0, 5.0a, 5.1, 5.1a

SYMPTOMS

When you convert a document between Word 5.x for the Macintosh and Word 2.x for Windows, incorrect characters may appear in place of original characters inserted using the Symbol command on the Insert menu.

The problem occurs if a Word 2.x for Windows document is saved in one of the following formats and then opened in Word 5.x for the Macintosh

Word for the Mac format
Word 2.x for Windows format
RTF format

or vice versa (that is, the document is a Word 5.x for the Macintosh document, it is saved in any of the three formats above, and then opened in Word 2.x for Windows).

NOTE: Although the Symbol font uses a unique character set, this problem does not occur with symbols inserted from the Symbol font.

CAUSE

The problem occurs even if the same fonts are available on both platform because the original extended characters are in a font that uses a unique (non-ANSI or Macintosh) character set. The converters supplied with Word for the Macintosh and Word for Windows fail to recognize when characters are inserted from a unique non-ANSI symbol set. Therefore, Word invokes the ANSI-to-Macintosh character set or Macintosh-to-ANSI character set mapping routines, and maps the characters to incorrect numeric values. Therefore, the wrong character appears in the converted document.

For example, if you insert WingDings character 233 (Up Arrow) in a Word for Windows document, Word mistakes WingDings 233 as ANSI symbol 233 (E Grave Capital), and when you convert to the Macintosh, 233 is mapped to the numeric character value that is the equivalent of E Grave Capital in the Macintosh character set (decimal value 200). Because the WingDings font name is applied in the converted document, WingDings symbol 200 (corner arrow) appears in Word for the Macintosh.

WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, use the appropriate method for your situation.

Method 1

If converting from Word for Windows to Word for the Macintosh, follow these steps:

Save your Word document in Rich Text Format (RTF) with a new name.

Reopen the RTF file into Word as Text Only.

Replace the "\ansi" RTF control word that appears on the first line of the RTF file with "\mac" (without quotation marks).

Resave the RTF file with the same name as Text Only (this will occur automatically when you choose File Save).

Open the RTF file into Word for the Macintosh.

If converting from Word for the Macintosh to Word for Windows, follow these steps:

Save your Word document with a new name as Interchange Format (RTF).

Open the RTF file into Word for Windows as Text Only.

Replace the "\mac" RTF control word that appears on the first line of the RTF file with "\ansi" (without quotation marks).

Resave the RTF file with the same name as Text Only.

Reopen into Word for Windows as RTF.

This method "tricks" Word by making the RTF file seem to already be formatted for its own native character set. Given this, no ANSI-to- Macintosh or Macintosh-to-ANSI character mapping routine is invoked and characters inserted from unique symbol sets are retained if the same font is available on the target platform.

NOTE: If your document also contains extended characters inserted from the base Macintosh or ANSI character sets, method 1 results in extended ANSI and Macintosh characters being mapped incorrectly.

Method 2

If you have already converted your document and no longer have access to the source Word program or the original document, you need to replace the incorrect characters following conversion.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this as a problem in the Wordmac.cnv converter used by Word 2.x for Windows, and the Word for Windows 2.0 converter supplied with Word 5.x for the Macintosh. This problem was corrected in Microsoft Word 6.x for Windows and Macintosh.

MORE INFORMATION

The ANSI character set contains 255 symbols. An extended character is a character with a value greater than or equal to 128.

This problem doesn't affect characters with numeric values less than 128 because these characters make up the ASCII character subset for which the same characters appear in both the ANSI and Macintosh character sets, and for which no character mapping routine is needed.

Some fonts with unique character sets for which this problem occurs include:

Lucida Bright Math Extension
Lucida Bright Math Italic
Lucida Bright Math Symbol
Monotype Sorts
MT Extra
Wingdings
Wingdings 2
Wingdings 3
ZapfDingbats

Additional query words: conversion converted converts transfer transfers translation translate problem zapf dingbats wing dings mono type sorts

Keywords : kbinterop winword macword kbFont wordconvert
Issue type : kbbug
Technology : kbWordSearch kbWordWSearch kbWordMSearch