Word 97+ and Cyrillic; Printers and Cyrillic

Paul Gorodyansky 'Cyrillic (Russian): instructions for Windows and Internet'

Preface:

From: Gunars Lucans 
Newsgroups: comp.fonts
Subject: Re: HELP! : Russian TTF problems

Surfer wrote:
> 
> I have Windows 95 + MS Office 97 installed.
> Many Russian TTF fonts are not working in Word, Excel & Power Point.
> Or they are rather partly working - when I switch keyboard to Eng -
> its OK, when to Rus : I get hollow boxes only. Please help!!!

The fonts you have are probably encoded for codepage 1251 (Windows Cyrillic).
They have all of the characters encoded in positions 0-255. 

Unlike previous versions, Office97, except for Access, now knows about Unicode.
When you switch to a Russian keyboard, Word reinterprets the keystrokes to
look for the corresponding cyrillic characters up in the Unicode range.
Since your fonts don't have anything encoded up there, Word displays
hollow boxes. 

Solutions:


 

How to fix a problem on your screen

Old documents and/or old fonts

There are no my own instructions below, it is a copy of the article Q163813 from the Microsoft Knowledge Base (and I did not try it myself).



Microsoft Knowledge Base: ARTICLE-ID: Q163813 "WD97: Boxes in Central European, Russian, or Greek Document"
Last reviewed: May 8, 1998 The information in this article applies to: Microsoft Word 97 for Windows IMPORTANT: This article contains information about editing the registry. Before you edit the registry, you should first make a backup copy of the registry files (System.dat and User.dat). Both are hidden files in the Windows folder. SYMPTOMS If you open a Microsoft Word document that was created using a Central European, Russian, or Greek version of Word, the text of the document may appear as square boxes when you open the document in the U.S. version of Word 97. In rare cases, this problem may also occur opening documents created in the U.S. version of Word. CAUSE Many fonts available in the Central European, Russian, and Greek markets have incorrect character set information. In these fonts, the character set parameter is mistakenly set to 0, incorrectly indicating a Western font. When the U.S. version of Word 97 opens the document, it converts it to Unicode based on the character set parameter. Since this parameter is incorrect, the conversion process is incorrect. RESOLUTION To correct this problem, install Microsoft Word 97 Service Release 1 (SR-1). This version of Word has been modified to correctly handle fonts that are known to have problems. (All most recent updates - SR-2, etc. - do include the features of SR-1).

If you are unable to update to SR-1 or any other new version, then use the following workaround.


Let's interrupt Microsoft instructions for a moment.

My NOTE.
Microsoft's workaround instruction based on the editing of the Registry is below but first let me provide you with the information about another method of solving this problem (though, I personally did not try it).

Here is a copy of another Newsgroup post by Gunars Lucans:

From: Gunars Lucans 
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 00:28:27 -0500
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.word.printingfonts

Here's another approach that was developed by Yuri Yarmola, the author
of the FontLab font creation tool.  He has a small utility program
available (free for personal use, small charge for commercial use)
called TrueTypeMap.
TTMap takes an existing TrueType font and makes sure all of the
characters in CP-1251 (Russian) are mapped both in the 0-255 range as
well as at the usual Unicode code points.
A non-Unicode aware program will look at the the 0-255 range;
a Unicode-aware program such as Word97 will look at the Unicode mappings.

It works with several other codepages as well (parameter files are included).
More information and download link is available at:
www.fontlab.com/ttmap_main.htm.
        


Continuation of the Microsoft Article ------------------------------------- WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall Windows 95. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk. For information about how to edit the registry, view the Changing Keys And Values online Help topic in Registry Editor (Regedit.exe). Note that you should make a backup copy of the registry files (System.dat and User.dat) before you edit the registry. To work around this problem, modify the registry to specify the correct font and code page Word needs to map the foreign language character set. To do this, follow these steps: Quit Word 97. Click the Start button, and then click Run. In the Open box, type "RegEdit" (without the quotation marks), and then click OK. Click the following key in the registry: Word 97 for Windows, Service Release 1 -------------------------------------- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\CP Font Mapping This key contains font substitution information specific to Word 97, Service Release 1. If you have a font on your system that exhibits character conversion problems, Word will substitute the font correctly as specified by this key. Word 97 for Windows ------------------- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Font Mapping This key determines which font and code page Word substitutes for a missing font. If the font that exhibits the problem is not on your system, Word substitutes the font specified by this key. If a font mapping does not already exist for the font that exhibits the problem, create a new mapping. (If a font mapping already exists for this font, skip to step 6.) On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click String Value. Type the name of the original font that is contained in the document, and then press ENTER. Click the original font name from step 5. On the Edit menu, click Modify, and type the name of the font you want Word to use, followed by a comma and the appropriate code page number from the following table. Use the OEM Primary code page for Windows fonts and the Macintosh code page for Macintosh fonts. Greek 10006 737 Russian 10007 866 Central European 10029 852 For example, the following Edit String entry maps Systemny, a Macintosh font, to the Cyrillic portion of Arial. Value Name: Systemny Value Data: Arial,10007 Reopening the Document in Word 6.0 or 7.0 If you need to open the document again in Word 6.0 or 7.0, map the fonts correctly back to the original font. To do this, follow these steps: Open the document in Word 6.0 or 7.0. On the Tools menu, click Options. Click the Compatibility tab. Click Font Substitution, and then select the desired fonts for those that are not available. Click OK. STATUS Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Word 97 for Windows. This problem was corrected in Microsoft Word 97 SR-1. For additional information about SR-1, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: ARTICLE-ID: Q172475 TITLE : OFF97: How to Obtain and Install MS Office 97 SR-1 MORE INFORMATION The following is a list of all known fonts that incorrectly set the character set parameter to 0. Microsoft Word 97 for Windows, Service Release 1 will perform a font substitution when opening a document containing one of these fonts and substitute the indicated font. The list of fonts is stored in the following registry location: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Font Mapping] "Tms Rmn"="Times Roman" "Times"="Times Roman" "Times Roman"="Times New Roman" "Times New Roman"="Times" "Helv"="Helvetica" "Helvetica"="Arial" "Arial"="Helvetica" "Courier"="Courier New" "Courier New"="Courier" "Helvetica Narrow"="Arial Narrow" "Arial Narrow"="Helvetica-Narrow" "Helvetica-Narrow"="Helvetica Narrow" "Bookman"="Bookman Old Style" "Bookman Old Style"="Bookman" "AvantGarde"="Avant Garde" "Avant Garde"="Century Gothic" "Century Gothic"="AvantGarde" "Palatino"="Book Antiqua" "Book Antiqua"="Palatino" "NewCenturySchlbk"="New Century Schlbk" "New Century Schlbk"="Century Schoolbook" "Century Schoolbook"="NewCenturySchlbk" "ZapfDingbats"="Zapf Dingbats" "Zapf Dingbats"="Monotype Sorts" "Monotype Sorts"="ZapfDingbats" "ZapfChancery"="Zapf Chancery" "Zapf Chancery"="Monotype Corsiva" "Monotype Corsiva"="ZapfChancery" "Garamond MT"="Garamond" "Geneva"="Arial" "Monaco"="Courier New" "Chicago"="Arial" "New York"="Times New Roman" "London"="Old English Text MT" "Los Angeles"="Onyx" "Elite"="Roman 12cpi" "EliteD"="Roman 6cpi" "NLQ"="Roman 10cpi" "Pica"="Roman 10cpi" "PicaD"="Roman 5cpi" "PS"="Roman PS" "PSD"="Roman PX" "Roman 12cpi"="Courier 12cpi" "Courier 12cpi"="Roman 12cpi" "Roman 6cpi"="Courier 6cpi" "Courier 6cpi"="Roman 6cpi" "Roman 10cpi"="Courier 10cpi" "Courier 10cpi"="Roman 10cpi" "Roman 5cpi"="Courier 5cpi" "Courier 5cpi"="Roman 5cpi" "Roman PS"="Courier PS" "Courier PS"="Roman PS" "NLQDblHigh"="NLQII 10cpi" "PSNLQ"="Courier PS" "Letter Gothic"="Courier New" "CGTimes_Scale"="CG Times" "CG Times"="CG Times (W1)" "CG Times (W1)"="Times New Roman" "Univers_Scale"="Univers" "Univers"="Univers (W1)" "Univers (W1)"="Arial" "CourierPC"="MS LineDraw" "Gothic"="Century Gothic" "MT Symbol"="Symbol" "MS LineDraw"="Courier New,437" "Kafisma"="Arial,866" "linedraw"="Courier New,437" Earlier versions of Word did not support Unicode. Unicode is a character set that supports most alphabets (languages) in the world. Before Unicode, a character set could support only 256 characters, so a different character set was needed for each alphabet. Word 97, which supports Unicode, maps characters from the old character set to the Unicode character set. To do a correct mapping, Word 97 must map the text to the proper character set. For example, character number 200 represents both a capital E (with a grave accent) in the Western European character set, and a capital I in the Cyrillic character set. To map each of these characters correctly to the Unicode character set, Word must map character number 200 to either the Western European range or the Cyrillic range within the Unicode character set. Word 97 has added extra functionality that allows character mapping to be made to a specific Unicode range in a font. For additional information, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: ARTICLE-ID: Q141306 TITLE : How to Enable Support for Multiple Languages in Windows 95 ARTICLE-ID: Q159418 TITLE : WD97: Some Printers Won't Print Unicode Characters ARTICLE-ID: Q159471 TITLE : WD97: How to Install the Far East Support Files ARTICLE-ID: Q99884 TITLE : Unicode and Microsoft Windows NT For information about technical support for localized versions of Microsoft products, please contact the Microsoft subsidiary in the appropriate country. To locate your subsidiary, see the Microsoft World Wide Offices Web site at: http://www.microsoft.com/worldwide/default.htm or see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: ARTICLE ID: Q49868 TITLE : Microsoft International Subsidiary Technical Support

 

Rare problem with Cyrillic in Windows 98 and Office 97 SE

A reader - VK - ran into such problem - and found some solutions.
Here is the text of his e-mail to me:
Configuration:

Windows 98 SE English US
Office 97 English US
Multilingual support installed
Russian keyboard is installed 

Symptoms: If you switch to Russian and try to type in Word, all Cyrillic letters are represented as blank squares. It is the same for the default fonts (like Arial or Times New Roman) as well, for an existing document or a brand new blank document - it doesn't matter.
Another symptom: in Insert > Symbol all symbols starting from Latin Extended-A are shown as blank squares.

Solution: Office 97 Small Business Edition (en-us) has badly broken Normal.dot template. Possibly some other versions has this bug too.
Namely "Default Paragraph Font" style has some crazy default charset (seems like Japanese ?) and "Normal" style has Language set to "English (Australian)".
All together it makes Word 97 so dizzy that it looses all characters except ISO Latin.

Immediate fix: select the problematic text and choose
  Tools > Language > Set Language > Russian

Permanent fix: hack Normal.dot or better yet override it by one taken from a Russian Office 97 installation. I used the first way then reinstalled and tried the second one with the same successful result.


Paul Gorodyansky. 'Cyrillic (Russian): instructions for Windows and Internet'