computer font question

[Mike Cleven]

Jeffrey Kopp wrote:
>
> On Mon, 4 Feb 2002 23:30:46 -0500, George Lang
> <george.lang at UALBERTA.CA> wrote:
>
> >Maybe this is obvious to some, but I can't get any useful advice from
> >the sources I have, and there surely has to be someone out there who
> >has resolved this problem for OS X.
> >
> >Merci d'avance,
> >George
>
> Well, this is way off the topic of the Jargon, but we are talking
> Macs and fonts and foreign language, and one of us (Henry) is having
> a heck of a time with a Chinese font problem on his Mac.  He's using
> Shoebox 5 which requires Word 6 (he has 6.0.1 on his Mac Performa)
> and it works well enough on his end, but when the resulting Word
> document is opened on his collaborator's iMac using either Word98 or
> Word2001, with a font of the exact same name installed, he gets
> gibberish.

Aren't Microsoft products and updates WONDERFUL?  ;-P

 I suspect that somewhere between his OS (6 or 7, I'm not
> sure) and the iMac's (or between the different versions of Word), the
> encoding scheme for this Chinese font has changed.

YOu should also try a post to sci.lang, where Chinese
transcription/coding issues are commonly discussed; if you don't play
around on UseNet but would like some feedback from there let me know and
I'll forward your problems to the newsgroup for their comment.
>
> (I tried embedding the font in the Word doc, which merely crashed the
> underpowered Performa.)

"Which wouldn't have happened if you were using a Windows OS", as a
Microsoft support tech might well tell you.  Microsoft products are
notoriously unreliable on non-Microsoft operating systems.

As a by the way, a friend of mine recently switched to the local cable
internet company, the install bundle for which made Internet Explorer
the default browser.  Hey - guess what - his Netscape install
_disappeared_.......some of the folders are still there, but key
elements like the application netscape.exe DISAPPEARED ENTIRELY.  How
come the US Justice Department doesn't hear about THIS kind of stuff?

>
> I am anxious to help him resolve this before he invests much work in
> this project, as I fear the possibility he might have to change the
> font he is using on his Performa for the Shoebox original in order to
> make the resulting Word doc iMac- (or Word2001-) compatible.
>
> I barely know how to turn on a Mac myself, nor do I know anything
> about non-Roman fonts (on PCs even, much less Macs).  But I am close
> enough to him to go over there and help--if only I knew what I was
> doing.  Any Mackers out there who could help us, or can point me to a
> useful Web reference?

Chinese 'fonts' aren't really fonts, but complex code renderings.  Do
you know if he's using Big Five or another system for encoding Chinese
characters?  It would help to know this before forwarding anything to
sci.lang......


> Thanks.
>
> Jeff

--
Mike Cleven
http://www.cayoosh.net (early BC history)
http://www.hiyu.net (Cayoosh Jargon phrasebook/history)