On both Microsoft Word 2000 and Powerpoint Viewer 2003, when I view
documents created on other machines, many special characters display
incorrectly. For instance, the equals sign displays as a bullet, and
many symbols used in equations such as alpha, beta, theta, delta etc
display as pictures of lightning, bicycles, envelopes, arrows etc.

I use Times New Roman, which is a truetype font, so its not that i'm
using a dodgy font.

The fact that this problem occurs on both Powerpoint and Word suggests
that there must be some global setting i can change to correct it.
Incidentally, on the old powerpoint 97 viewer, the characters display
correctly.

Thanks for your time!

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Clarification of Question by guygregory-ga on 28 Nov 2004 03:11 PST

These documents open correctly on other peoples computers who have the
same version of Word that I do. So I don't think its that they use
different fonts.

Also, with the equation editor in Word, I can view the symbols in
imported documents fine, but the moment i double click on the equation
to try and edit it, the symbols all change to random shapes and
letters etc.

I would suggest that the originators of the document use fonts which
you don?t have on your computer and it does the closest substitution
it can.

If this be the case, tell the originators to *only* use Arial or Times
New Roman which should always be available in any installation. This
is regarded as good practice.

Alternatively, ask them to embed the fonts (in the
?tools?-?options?-?save?), which will make them display correctly even
though the fonts are not on your machine.

Best

Mmmm. Equation editor corrupting is odd, although quirks with this bit
of clunky software are quite common. It is possible that the sender
changed the fonts for that as well. Can you contact the sender and ask
them? Or you may have a limited set of fonts installed since other
people get them fine?

If you email a document to yourself you could check that something
bizarre isn?t happening elsewhere but can?t think what.

Only other thing I can think of is your font compatibility table is
screwy but clutching at straws here. Try selecting the funny
characters and see what font is being reported -- and convert to Arial
or TNR.

Failing this, anyone else got an idea?

Best

Also check your regional settings in Windows. You or the author may be
using a screwy character set.