[Sca-cooks] That fractions problem again

[Stefan li Rous]

Brekke commented:
> right in one; it converted back in your reply, but I re-checked the
> original anyway.
I've seen this happen before. What I believe is happening is that the 
underscore is displayed  as a placeholder when there is no character 
defined for a particular binary value, in this case one of the single 
character fraction symbols in the font being used. However, somewhat 
surprisingly, the actual binary value continues to get transferred from 
program to program when cut and pasted or from incoming to outgoing 
message. So the correct character does ultimately get displayed on a 
system, in this case Brekke's, which uses a font with the special 
character. Of course if that binary number is used to represent a 
different special character then you get that displayed rather than the 
fraction, which we have seen happen before on this list.

The best solution is probably not to use the fraction symbols or other 
special characters that may not exist on the system at the other end. 
Unfortunately, unless the option is turned off, Microsoft Word's 
default is to "help you" by converting anything it can to special 
characters. At least now in the more recent versions of Word they let 
you turn this automatic conversion off.

I think one of the problem fonts is the "Courier New" font which 
includes the fraction symbols, while the "Courier" font does not. 
Windows systems seem to use the former, while Macs may not come with 
that font installed, although it may be included in the Microsoft 
Office programs.

So when confronted with mysterious underscores or seemly missing 
characters, you might try selecting the text and converting it to a 
different font.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
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