Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?

Subject: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 05:59 AM

Some threads, e.g. this one, display using different fonts from normal. Any idea why? I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.11/ Windows 2000.

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: Newport Boy
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 06:14 AM

Not for me, and I'm on Firefox 2.0.0.11 and WinXP. All threads use the same font, except where the technorati play around.

Phil

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 07:15 AM

I occasionally find threads display in different fonts from usual, but I've always assumed it was a sporadic bug in my browser (I generally use iCab 2.9.9, an old browser for MacOS 9). But the solar power thread you're talking about displays normally for me.

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 07:28 AM

You mean like this?

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: LeTenebreux
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 09:42 AM

I didn't notice anything peculiar about the thread you mentioned.
(Firefox 2.0)

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 10:33 AM

You usually have to work at displaying a different font at Mudcat. It's probably some setting in your browser.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 12:14 PM

If someone specifies a different font for their post..AND if you have that font installed, it will probably show...unless you have told your browser not to pay any attention to such things.
   There are quite a lot of possibilities.

SRS specified "Garamond" for her reply, and I saw the change.

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 12:26 PM

Mr. Happy, on the other hand, specified "Monotype Corsiva", which my system does not have, so nothing happened.

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 12:35 PM

Yup. It pays to choose fonts that most systems can display if you're going to go changing fonts.

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 12:46 PM

Character encoding?

It's something I've messed up (I hope right now but some "legacy" remains... on another site, between utf8 and "Latin) that affects a few threads and something Mudcat doesn't specify (eg,this shows browsers have to "guess").

but that sort of "funny" lends to weird characters in the text.

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: Little Robyn
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 01:57 PM

Hey, that's clever!
SRS is the only one who did it for my computer.
Robyn

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: Bernard
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 04:12 PM

I can't do that fancy stuff...!

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 05:03 PM

Your browser should have some sort of controls for handling fonts. There are limits to what you can do, but a few very basic settings should be "somewhere" in any browser.

In IE, Tools|Internet Options, on the General tab, should have a "Fonts" button near the bottom. You can specify what "Language" you want to use, and which font you want used for html pages and which to use for plain text.

It's usual to specify a "proportional" font for html, and a "monospace" for plain text.

Verdana is a "preferred" proportional font (by Microsoft) and should be present on nearly all computers. It could be a good choice, and on some computers it may have more "international" characters than some older ones you may have. "Times family" and Arial are other popular proportional ones. Courier and a number of others are often used for monospaced. What you specify here must be a font that you have on your own computer.

Also at the Tools|Internet Options, General Tab, Fonts Button, in IE, there should be a "link" to "How to Ignore Preset Fonts." This just takes you to the "Accessibility" settings where you can make choices for three things to ignore if someone specifies a font on a page you look at.

A font called in "code" in the page html, as has been done for a few "examples" above in this thread, will be displayed only if the font is on your machine.

A web site can embed a font that you don't have, so that it "sends with the page." The most common(?) usage of this is by companies who have created their own font for displaying corporate (©) names, logos, and icons, although it does pop up occasionally for less "formal" purposes.

When/if people specify a font in a post here, it should be remembered that people who bought their computers in different parts of the world do not have the same default fonts as when the same computer with the same OS is acquired elsewhere, and quite probably don't even have the same keys in the same places on their keyboards. Using the "skill" you may have to call for unusual fonts may make your message illegible for some users, in addition to the usual "incomprehensible" character associated naturally with some who are prone to such use.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 05:13 PM

There will always be a few of each type, serif, sans serif, italic, and bold, as well as monospaced and proportional. Your browser will select what it thinks matches what it is being asked to display. Compare browsers and you'll see how they each interpret the same page. Any given page that is coded in HTML (and not just a bunch of text saved as an image and posted on a page) is rarely going to appear the same in different browsers.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 06:40 PM

"Preferred" and Verdana is interesting.,,

Some don't like it. See here

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 08:22 PM

I 'mostly' use Georgia as my default, but I have not changed it in some browsers and Arial appears at times.

The MOST important thing for me is to have the largest possible set of characters available within the font.

If there are significant blanks in this table, you 'might' consider checking your settings.

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: Don Firth
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 08:39 PM

Fun. But one really needs to use moderation if one's post is to be readable. I frequently use italics, underline, bold or Big for emphasis (sometimes all at the same time), and occasionally color, but so far, I haven't changed font very often.

If done too much, one's post may wind up looking like a ransome note (different letters cut out of a magazine and pasted on a piece of paper).

Nothing excedes like excess!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Jan 08 - 08:57 PM

Jon -

I don't care much for Verdana on my browser, and generally use a Times-Roman (I have about 7 in this family) for default, but Verdana is one (or at least "emulates" some others that are) fairly commonly used font for "typewriter" correspondence in business offices.

Most of the older typefaces contained only the "ANSI Set" of characters, leaving some without accents and other diacriticals, and with limited "special symbols."

For Win2K and later, an attempt was made to provide some new fonts (sometimes with the same old names) with "full UNICODE" or "Augmented Latin" or "slightly extended" character sets, and Verdana happens to be one that was picked for an augmented set.

By using Verdana as a default anyone who corresponds with someone using lots of "furrin" (to US/common-English users) characters is a little less likely to see "unprintables" in the text. The more versatile/complete set of characters is likely the only reason that quite a few web sites use it - which is something one might not notice if your browser is set to substitute something else that you prefer.

Even Verdana is not commonly seen with a "full Unicode" character set. There are only a very few "full set" fonts available (that are "spec compliant"), and special acquisition, download, and install is required. A full set font is enormous and will slow down everything on your machine, so installing one is NOT RECOMMENDED for most people. Many of the Unicode characters cannot be used without additional "utilities" - as for example right-to-left text, vertical columns, and/or "composite character" constructs. The little "extras" can be hard to get (and/or expensive for individual users) so loading on marginally useful extras is not advised.

If you have a font (typeface) you prefer, that's the one you should use, unless/until you run into lots of "unknown char" characters when you go someplace where you like to be and/or be seen.

Knowing that Verdana is availabe, and how to flip it in place, can be handy if you do run into "broken font" displays. Also knowing whether your other "fonts" are augmented sets (contain more than basic char glyphs) is useful information occasionally in the same circumstances, since there is a lot of variation between different "same named" sets.

It's all very messy, and not really - for most - very important to know in too much detail.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: Newport Boy
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 04:29 AM

Bill D - Your clicky points to the graphic version of the table, which everyone should see correctly. Try this version

Phil

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 05:24 AM

The table linked by Bill D shows only the ANSI character set - decimal char numbers up to 2⁸-1. Very nearly all fonts should have most of these, although some "glyph substitutions" may be present in some fonts.

The table is actually a "composite" of Latin 1 and Symbol fonts within this range, but it shows only characters that can be inserted into html using the Alt-NumPad method. It doesn't represent all the characters that Georgia (584 char in my Adobe face) or Verdana (~600 char in my TrueType face) can represent in a posted web page, so it's not really a test of "how good" a font is for use in a browser.

ARCANE TRICKERY:

In most recent versions of Microsoft Word, if you type the hex code for a character, and then key Alt-X, the code will be converted to the Unicode glyph for the character for that code number. Once you get the character you want, you can copy it from Word and paste it in a post. Only the character code is actually "entered" into where you post it, and the font that's set or specificed determines whether it will "look right." Anyone with a browser/font setup that can "see" that character will get it correctly when they view the web page.

For an additional way of using this little "trick" you can copy a character from a web page whether or not it displays correctly in your browser. Paste it into Word and set the cursor immediately to the right of what you pasted. Click Alt-X and it will be transformed into the hex code for the Unicode character.

Click Alt-X again, to change it back to a "glyph," and then change the font until you find one that displays it correctly, if necessary.

Note that this works only in some Word versions and full function may require that you have current Office updates regardless of the version you have.

If you're not "fluent in Hex" a conversion chart may come in handy.

(Georgia is, in the face I have, an "augmented character set" approximately equivalent to Verdana as far as characters represented, but it doesn't appear to be contained in the Microsoft default font set(s) since I don't have it in a TrueType - the only kind Mickey distributes willingly. It's probably a pretty good choice if you have it. The font does - in my version - contain things like the "oganek and other diacriticals" missing from the chart.)

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 11:54 AM

Thanks, John....I learn something new every day. ....and I love 'arcane trickery'.

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 02:56 PM

The Arcane Trick is a bit of a puzzle, as the Word Help file item that I found just before that post now includes stuff that was not previously there when I used the same search term a year (or several) ago.

The use of the Alt-X to read the Hex Code for an unknown character has been added in my Word 2002. Previously, in my Word 2002, the conversion to the glyph was "one way" and they've apparently made it into a "toggle" function.

I did check and verified that it works in my Word 2002, Lin's Word 2003 SP3, and the laptop's Word 2007. I don't have any older versions running to see how far back it goes, but doubt that it will work in Word97, since that version didn't have Unicode char capability the last time I used it and it's unlikely to have been updated.

I've had a macro button that I added to a Word toolbar that tells me the ANSI value (decimal) for chars up to 254, but had not previously been able to get the Microsoft wonk who originally provided it back when we both were using Win98 (Word97)to update it to handle Unicode char codes, and hadn't figured out how to do it myself. (Word has deprecated using macros since the big "macro virus" scare, and objects now when you try to create or edit one. I had to do some updating to get the macro into Word 2002, but that was very minor tweaking.)

The Office "Character Map" should be present in all Office versions, in Programs|Accessories, and you can use it to see all of the characters that a particular font can use. It will show you only the fonts you have installed and only the chars the font can display/print. The selection of which "Character Set" to choose when you look is sort of a puzzle, but usually selecting "Unicode" will give the most complete display of what's possible with a font you have installed. If you have "language specific" special fonts installed, another set may be of some use, and you may have some fonts that don't offer the Unicode selection. Other char display utilities can give you similar info.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 09:29 PM

With regard to the MS 'Word97' reader that was once widely touted - my Win 98 system now refuses to read most "MS-Doc" files - I am looking for a compatible reader, preferably one that will allow me to save a format stripped or disabled version of the text in at least plain ASCII or even RTF. I do have OOO, and it seems to be able to handle things, but I have a need for the fastest loadable reader - many attempts to convert things to a text file destroy the files.

I also have some weird HTML files (picked off the web) in which EACH character is followed by a NULL character!!! Bloody Hell! JiK - any ideas how to convert these, and what the hell produced them?! :-)

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 11:08 PM

Foolestroupe -

You need an archaeologist for all your old stuff.
Or maybe a taxidermist. Someone once told me "old farts like you should all get stuffed."

I haven't seen any problem with my current Word programs reading files produced by any older Word, even going back to DOS versions, with the exception of some files that came from very old "Works" programs. There was briefly a .CRD format that was difficult to bring forward, that might be present in stuff as ancient as yours. Most of even the .WKS and .CRD stuff could be "salvaged" to save the good pieces, but some didn't come across as what you could call "intact" or even with everything in them.

The really old files I have all have been "progressively updated" by opening them in newer versions and resaving as each new version came along. Going back to the nth generation of ancestors in a single leap may be a little more difficult.

Some earlier versions of Word, when crossmating with 'Nix and Mac programs had a problem particularly with the CR (carriage return) that sometimes garbled things. The "glyph" (ANSI 0182, U+00B6, char name Pilcrow) "¶" used to show paragraph breaks in Word actually combined two char. Unix used the same(?) two char, a CR + LF but sometimes in reverse order from the Word usage. Nobody quite knows (to have documented it at the time) what Macs did.

Additonally, the Unix/Mac vs Microsoft "bit reversal" - bigendian vs littleendian - translation often messed things up. Insertion of Esc chars for printer command/control also sometimes resulted in strange things; and poor handling of Esc chars - according to vague memory - sometimes could result in "null char artifacts." I'm not sure I've still got anything that old on the shelf to refresh the memory from.

First recommendation, of course, would be to locate all the bad files and isolate them. Make copies to play with and don't touch the originals again until you've figured out something that works. (But you've already done that, of course.)

If the old files are/were on floppy disks, I'd have to say that my experience with long-term archiving on floppies is extremely poor. Even under ideal conditions, bits get dropped. The problem may be that the disks don't actually contain "real files" any more if that's how they've been stored, rather than that the files are in a different format.

The last time I ran into a few files that didn't want to come across, I think I used BASIC to do char-by-char inspect and replace, but it's been decades since I've even had a usable BASIC. That disappeared from default kits when hard drives were invented. You might have to fall back on something like edlin(?). If so, condition yourself to think like a masochist - "The pain is such a joy."

(I wonder if I really can remember any of that old stuff?????)

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 11:22 PM

"my Win 98 system now refuses to read most "MS-Doc" files "

These are only the NEW ones - straight off the web - probably XP or Vista stuff... the OLD ones saved work just fine. I don't have any NEW Word - my version of Word came with Win95 - and I unloaded it some time ago.

I grew up on Hex Editors... patching TRS80 files hot on the floppy...

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 11:22 PM

Frickin - holy mole' by golly.

SRS specified "Garamond" for her reply

Mudcat needs a GENDER identity before every name...Mr. Ms. Mrs. Miss.

Abby (an ambiguous name) was confused for the weaker-sex...and confused with Harp Girl....aka Harpy who declared, "No Beard!" after six years.

SRS (of this thread) is confused because of Silent Ranger Sage....and the masculine, testosorine infused style of posting...(only wish she was more silent)

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Jan 08 - 11:51 PM

Garg, your meds . . . it's time for the next handful.

SRS (Stilly River Sage, she who was a ranger for many years. . .)

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 01:58 AM

Foolestroupe -

All recent Word documents have carried a .doc file extension - until now. Early files, perhaps back to Word97, were essentially a "text file with simple tags," with the mostly-hidden tags giving the format information.

More recent documents have still used the .doc extension, but were "sort of" - "almost" - "kind of like" - html in the use of more complex tags. They weren't "pure anything" but the "text" still could be fairly easily extracted and some of the simpler formatting was easy to convert.

You may be seeing "Word 2007" files on the web. I've run into a few. The default format for Word 2007 carries a .docx file extension in pure "Word form" and the innards are entirely(?) based on "XML." Microsoft ".NET" methods can also be applied to produce the "Microsoft replacement for .pdf" but offhand I don't even remember what the file extension(s) are for the various "flavors" that may be found.

Word 2007 - the latest - also supports "four character" file extensions, but I haven't gotten through enough research to identify more than a very few. It claims that it recognizes and treats .htm files differently than .html files, although documentation I've seen thus far is vague about what the specific differences in handling are. (I seem to recall seeing an actual .xtml file on one website recently, that my IE handled okay. ????)

All of the "recently older" Office programs can download "import filters" to allow them to open and read the .docx (and similar other formats from other Office programs) and separate "export filters" are being released by Microsoft to allow some older programs to save files in the new formats. The import filters I've tried out appear to work okay, if you can get past the baby-talk in the snotty warnings that "you'll die if you don't get new Office." I'm less convinced that the export filters thus far available are "fully stable" but haven't really tried them out much.

If you're using something other than Office, it would be expected that updates will eventually be available to provide similar import/export filters, but I suspect that many alternative programs will need some time to get them ready to go.

A few of these "new" files may be viewable in your browser, if you can force them to open there. (You might even try changing the file extension on copies of a few files to try that.) The appearance of the new files on the web - at a few sites - and (mostly) successful handling of them by my IE suggests that the browsers may be "ahead of the curve" - or at least closer to it - for providing some degree of usability.

Among Microsoft products, IE is about the closest thing there is to a "universal reader" and actually does a surprisingly good job with quite a few "foreign" file types where one wouldn't expect much; although there are also many other filetypes that it just won't load.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 08:09 PM

Fooles...take a look at AbiWord (free,open source)
or

Atlantis Nova, free 'lite' version

for possibly being a solution to old .doc files.

There are a couple others, but these are the best regarded.

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: NightWing
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 10:45 PM

John in Kansas:

You said, "I've had a macro button that I added to a Word toolbar that tells me the ANSI value (decimal) for chars up to 254, but had not previously been able to get the Microsoft wonk who originally provided it back when we both were using Win98 (Word97)to update it to handle Unicode char codes, and hadn't figured out how to do it myself. (Word has deprecated using macros since the big "macro virus" scare, and objects now when you try to create or edit one. I had to do some updating to get the macro into Word 2002, but that was very minor tweaking.)"

Happens that such macros are something I'm disgustingly good with. If you want, send me a private message and you can send me that macro. I can probably (no guarantees :-) get it to recognize the Unicode values.

BB,
NightWing

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 16 Jan 08 - 11:07 PM

Ta Bill - will set them up later - dnlding now.

Subject: RE: Tech: Why do some threads have funny fonts?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 17 Jan 08 - 12:34 AM

NightWing -

Thanks for the offer, but since the Unicode Atl-X in Word has been made into a toggle, it doesn't really seem worth messing with updating the macro, especially since Office updates make it really hard to get one onto a toolbar and make it work.

As a curiosity, the original Macro was from Win98 times. It "imported" okay into later Word but was never updated for the newer macro language. the "WordBasic." fragments were a "crossover" edit required to make the obsolete stuff work in a newer version.

Public Sub MAIN()
  Dim A$
  Dim CharValue
  A$ = WordBasic.[Selection$]()               '*A$=Highlighted text
  While Len(A$) >= 1               '* While the Length of A$ is
                                          '* greater than 1
  CharValue = Asc(A$)             '* the ANSI value of 1st character
  If Len(A$) > 1 Then              '* Reducing the length of A$
          A$ = Mid(A$, 2)        '* A$ = A$ minus the 1st character
  Else
          A$ = ""                   '* A$ = nothing
  End If
  WordBasic.MsgBox Chr(34) + Chr(CharValue) + Chr(34) + " ANSI val = " + Str(CharValue)         '* Display values in a message box
  Wend                                    '* end while loop
  End Sub

I really don't know who created it originally, but we got it during a "book processing" job that a friend at Microsoft was involved in. I assume he wrote it, although he may have picked it up from someone else there.

John