Have I mentioned recently how much I hate Microsoft?
Word has decided, just this morning, that instead of autocorrecting -- to - it will autocorrect it to a BOX... one of those stupid "this character doesn't exist in this font" boxes. I could still copy & paste previous emdashes, but I couldn't create new ones, not even with alt-0151; I just got the box again.
It took me a while to sort out what was happening.
Instead of creating a nice normal emdash like it's been doing for years, and it did last night, it's now converting them to Symbol font, where that character is unsupported. So when I switch it back to Times, it works fine.
GAAAAAHHH!
I tried Googling for what's going on and how to stop it. Can't find it. Know why? Because Googling "font trouble Microsoft Word" gets millions of pages with advice on how Word screws up fonts in Windows 95, 98, 2000, NT and XP, with advice on how to change from unicode fonts to ascii fonts, explanations of symbol-vs-text fonts, and how when MS translates its own pages to HTML, it does bizarre things with unicode characters that make the author look like a moron if the reader isn't using MS software to view the website. Mixed in with these helpful pages are Microsoft's own pages about how cool and useful their software is, and how easy everything will be if you just stop using anything created by a different company.
I'm sure that, somewhere on the web, there's an explanation why my copy of Word 2000 has decided its autocorrect now needs to go into Symbol, instead of sticking with that character in the original font. Or at least, a set of instructions of how to stop it. But I'm not spending six hours slogging through Word help and advice pages to find it.
If anyone can tell me why this is happening or more importantly, how I can stop it, I'd appreciate it. If not, just consider this an opportunity to bitch about Microsoft.
(System info: Windows XP, no service packs. Microsoft Office 2000. Much RAM. Plenty of hardrive space. Was working fine last night. Have installed a new thing this morning--*after* the problem occurred--some sound drivers related to the motherboard. Shouldn't affect this. No virii I can find.)
It took me a while to sort out what was happening.
Instead of creating a nice normal emdash like it's been doing for years, and it did last night, it's now converting them to Symbol font, where that character is unsupported. So when I switch it back to Times, it works fine.
GAAAAAHHH!
I tried Googling for what's going on and how to stop it. Can't find it. Know why? Because Googling "font trouble Microsoft Word" gets millions of pages with advice on how Word screws up fonts in Windows 95, 98, 2000, NT and XP, with advice on how to change from unicode fonts to ascii fonts, explanations of symbol-vs-text fonts, and how when MS translates its own pages to HTML, it does bizarre things with unicode characters that make the author look like a moron if the reader isn't using MS software to view the website. Mixed in with these helpful pages are Microsoft's own pages about how cool and useful their software is, and how easy everything will be if you just stop using anything created by a different company.
I'm sure that, somewhere on the web, there's an explanation why my copy of Word 2000 has decided its autocorrect now needs to go into Symbol, instead of sticking with that character in the original font. Or at least, a set of instructions of how to stop it. But I'm not spending six hours slogging through Word help and advice pages to find it.
If anyone can tell me why this is happening or more importantly, how I can stop it, I'd appreciate it. If not, just consider this an opportunity to bitch about Microsoft.
(System info: Windows XP, no service packs. Microsoft Office 2000. Much RAM. Plenty of hardrive space. Was working fine last night. Have installed a new thing this morning--*after* the problem occurred--some sound drivers related to the motherboard. Shouldn't affect this. No virii I can find.)