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Tools: Missing PC symbols on a Mac? Use your browser!
Subject:Tools: Missing PC symbols on a Mac? Use your browser! From:Geoff Hart <ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Thu, 21 Apr 2005 09:49:13 -0400
As Mac users know, there are many font mismatches between Mac and PC if
you're using pre-Unicode fonts. Mac OS X provides good Unicode support,
but if you're still using a version of Word older than Word 2004,
you'll find that Word doesn't offer full Unicode support. Result: lots
of standard Windows keyboard characters (e.g., the 1/2 fraction symbol,
the superscript 2 and 3 symbols, etc.) appear as underscore characters
(_). Very frustrating if you're an editor responsible for ensuring that
the correct symbols are present!
If you can get your clients to send you a PDF, the characters are
usually visible in the PDF and you can work around the problem. If not,
there's an alternative: On the McEdit list, Julie Pickard reported an
elegant solution that often works (lightly revised; all errors mine):
- Save a copy of the Word file in html format, then launch your
Unicode-enabled Web browser. (Safari, for example.)
- Open the html file in the browser. If you see a message about a
missing Character Set (or something similar), keep clicking OK until
the file loads.
- Voila! In most cases, you should now see the characters in your
browser.
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