Transferring Cyrillic files between Mac and PC

[Andrew M. Drozd]

For those who work in a dual os environment like I do, this solution, which I
 learned from
Patricia Jarvis, may be of help. For those who have a subscription to RusTex-L,
 I apologize for
the multiple copies.

The problem: When creating a word processing file using Cyrillic on a Mac, one
 cannot simply
place it on a DOS disk, insert it into a PC and expect to see the Cyrillic
 undamaged. Even using
the same program (MS Word for Mac and MS Word for Windows) is of no avail. If
 one saves the
file as text, the Cyrillic will be undamaged, but all formatting is lost. The
 same problem exists
when going from a PC to a Mac.

The Solution: when you have created your file using Cyrillic on a Mac, save it
 as RTF (also
known as interchange format). If you are using MS Word, the file will remain
 open. Go to the
very first line of the file, near the very beginning of the line and look for
 the word "mac".
Replace "mac" with "ansi" and save the document again. Put it on a DOS disk and
 you can call it
up on a PC with all your formatting and Cyrillic text undamaged. (You may have
 to choose
"Select All" and then choose a Cyrillic font.) The process works in reverse on a
 PC to Mac
exchange: look for  "ansi" and replace it with "mac".

Caveats: this is not a perfect solution to everyone's problems. In order for
 this to work, you must
have fonts in the same codepage on both the Mac and the PC. This is where Gavin
 Helf's ER
fonts are of great use. If you create a document on the Mac using ERBukinistMac,
 you can use the
PC equivalent to view and print the file on the PC. This process is good only
 for those who want
to leave their documents in the same codepage. If you want to switch from the
 Mac codepage to
the Windows codepage AND preserve your formatting at the same time, it won't
 help. But for
someone who works on a Mac (like me) but has only a PC printer on which to print
 out, this will
be of great use. Finally, I have tested this process only with Microsoft Word.
Andrew M. Drozd
adrozd at woodsquad.as.ua.edu

Dept. of German and Russian
Box 870262
University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0262

205-348-5055