Re: curious font problem?

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Despite the fact that it's clearly using a different font to display the Ethiopic characters, PPT still
shows that the text is in Arial Unicode MS (and in fact it is ... PPT is still asking for character 4707
et al in that font, but Windows is doing some fancy footwork behind the scenes to supply the needed glyph,
even if it has to swap fonts to do it.

That pretty much nails down the "Why it happens" bit, I think.

Amazing!!

Seems like you need to be lashing your counterparts over in the
Windows office with a wet noodle, or something.

My counterparts? Here at PPTools Universal HQ, that'd be a wife, four permanent cats and a loaner kitten.
<g>

Like the other folks who answer questions here, I don't work for MS. Strictly a volunteer (it's easy to tell
... the MS folks aren't allowed to get cranky with the customers).

But setting aside the potential for mass confusion (which we've managed between us to demonstrate clearly
enough, eh? <g>) this isn't all bad. Consider: PowerPoint's asking Windows to display a character that doesn't
exist in a particular font. Instead of just giving up then and there, Windows finds a font that *does* contain
the character and uses that. It might not be the right font, but as long as it can find one with the character
available, we get it, rather than the useless "Beats me, Boss" blank box that we'd get otherwise.

Now for the "What to DO about it."

The gfzemenu.ttf font I downloaded is completely embeddable. If the font you're using is also, you can
try embedding it in the PPT while saving.

First, you'd have to set the font back from Arial Unicode MS to [whatever you're using].
Then choose File, Save As, give the file a new name, then click Tools, choose Save Options, then put a
check next to Embed Truetype Fonts and save the file. This may or may not work ... here it crashed PPT
repeatedly(oddball fonts can do this).

I'll see what happens the next time I use these data as an example.

BTW, if I had _typed_ my Chinese examples instead of using a graphic,
would an entire font of 5000+ 16-bit characters have been incorporated
into the "packed" PPT presentation on the CD, thus making it rather
larger than 6 Mb?

Not necessarily. When you choose Tools, Save Options in the Save dialog box, you have the option of embedding
the entire font or just the needed characters. In the first case, you get larger files, of course, but the
presentation remains editable on other computers. In the second, the files will be smaller but you won't be
able to edit text in that font.

(Not that I _could_ type my Chinese examples: I
found a very full discussion of the many different Chinese IME's
available in Windows -- which left out the simple instructions of how
to install any one of them -- only one seems to be available in out-of-
the-box XP Pro

It may be that some of the others aren't included with Windows and must be purchased. Or came with earlier
versions of Windows?

I found a reasonably thorough explanation of installing and using Chinese and Japanese support here:
http://newton.uor.edu/Departments&Programs/AsianStudiesDept/Language/index.html

-- or what the mapping of the phonetic varieties (which
is what I'd be using) to the keyboard!

I've never had call to install any of the Chinese IMEs. The Japanese IME allows entering characters in several
ways; for non-Japanese reader/speakers, the easiest is to enter the reading of the characters phonetically in
our normal roman letters; as you enter them, they get converted to hiragana (Japanese phonetic characters) and
thence optionally to kanji (Chinese characters).


If the font you're using will embed, then when you open the presentation on other computers, it should
work correctly.

For limited amounts of text, I'd suggest another simpler, much more reliable dodge:

Click within the text to get the editing cursor
Press ESC to select the shape that contains the text

I.e. the whole text box? How about images of just the few characters
involved?

You could do that as well; just create a text box containing only the needed characters. You need to be able to
select the entire shape that contains the desired text, not the text itself.

Press Ctrl + C to copy the shape
Choose Edit, Paste Special and select PNG as the type; click OK

That'll give you an image of the text rather than the text itself. An image won't be editable, but will
require no fonts, so won't change.

You may then want to drag the original "fonted" text off the slide rather than just deleting it.
You can then drag it back on, edit, and reconvert to PNG should edits become necessary.

Whew. We owe one another a drink. ;-)

What does "PNG" mean?

It's a graphics file format ... Portable Network Graphics.
The reason for using it rather than other formats is that it supports transparency, which you may need.

You like eggnog?

With rum? We can work with this. You take the nog, I'll take the grog.

-----------------------------------------
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================


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