Fonts (Office & Windows 2k)

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I have posted a far too general query into the general office section. Having hunted further myself, I would now like to refine my question.

I have a range in an excel spreadsheet into which I want to be able to put and maintain relatively easily the values of “tick, cross, ?”. I realise that I can use two different fonts, say arial for the ? and monotype sorts for the two symbols. this requires every cell in the matrix with a value to have its font correctly specified, and if the values change, the font has to change as well. What I want is to able to declare a font for the whole range (can be diferent from the rest of the document) and then just type a value into a cell for the right character to show.

We have spotted that a number of fonts have access to unicode characters e.g. arial unicode, but cannot find how you can key in a value to access them.

ASCII used to be ALT+3chr numeric, is there an equivalent for unicode?

Thanks for any help, either through the “single font” approach or unicode. The solution has to be able to be sent with the file overseas so the font or solution has to travel.

Mike C

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For unicode, type four digits. Pad with zeroes. So the euro symbol is alt-0128

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Jan, thank you for replying. In character map (W2K) it shows the character / symbol, and down the bottom what I assume is the reference. This takes the form of “U+nnnn”. I have assumed that this is what I have to enter, and from your message I now also assume that “U” means ALT.

So when I use Excel, the codes from character map do not achieve the right effect in Excel. some just show the wrong character, and some produce no result. Is there something else I should be doing?

THanks,

Mike C

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Jan, thank you for replying. In character map (W2K) it shows the character / symbol, and down the bottom what I assume is the reference. This takes the form of “U+nnnn”. I have assumed that this is what I have to enter, and from your message I now also assume that “U” means ALT.

So when I use Excel, the codes from character map do not achieve the right effect in Excel. some just show the wrong character, and some produce no result. Is there something else I should be doing?

THanks,

Mike C

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For unicode, type four digits. Pad with zeroes. So the euro symbol is alt-0128

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Hi,
Have you tried Data Validation? You can use the Character Map to select the symbols you want and put them into 3 separate cells, then select your entry range, choose Data-Validation, choose List in the Allow box, and select the range with your symbols as the source. Also, ensure that In-cell dropdown is checked. In your entry range you shoudl now get a dropdown box for each cell which contains the tick, cross and question mark to choose from.
Note: I have only tested this on XL2002 but see no reason why it wouldn’t work in 2k.
Hope that helps.

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Rory, you are 90% brilliant. Real lateral thinking and indeed it works within 2k. As a point and shoot mechanism it is excellent – just set the destination cells to have the unicode font and you are off.

The 10% is that the drop down validations dont show as the choice you are making because they are in the wrong font.

Actually in this case I am only using check and ? so it is really no problem, but the general solution for those occasions when greater choice is in the offing would be more difficult.

Thanks again

Mike C

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Mike,
You shouldn’t have to set any fonts at all doing it the way I described. I inserted the symbols into three cells (without changing their font from Arial) and then applied the data validation to some other cells, again without changing their font. Everything looked fine to me. See if the attached looks ok to you.

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Rory,

as received and opened, the spreadsheet showed the ? as a ? and the other characters as boxes, and the drop-downs as boxes.

setting the sheet font to arial unicode made them look fine, but left the dropdown as boxes.

I wasnt complaining, you do understand that?

cheers,

Mike

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Rory,

as received and opened, the spreadsheet showed the ? as a ? and the other characters as boxes, and the drop-downs as boxes.

setting the sheet font to arial unicode made them look fine, but left the dropdown as boxes.

I wasnt complaining, you do understand that?

cheers,

Mike

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Mike,
I didn’t think you were complaining, I just don’t like to give up at 90% success! It may be due to the fact that I inserted the symbols from Arial Unicode MS (I don’t know if you have that font) or due to different OS and Office versions. You might find that if you use the square root symbol from the Arial font as well as a standard ‘X’ and ‘?’, it then displays correctly.

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Rory,

I am using arial unicode, which I have two versions visible in Excel, arial unicode MS and @arial Unicode MS.

Both show a square root as a square root

thanks

Mike C

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Mike,

for whatever it’s worth, the attached screenshot shows the various marks correctly in Excel 2003. (I hid cols B,C to take up less space in the shot and included the font box so you could see what the font was set to. Also D1:D3 are in Arial as well.)

Fred

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Rory,

Mmmm. I’ll take this home over the weekend and see what I get out of XP.
Interestingly I sent it to one of my colleagues who was working from home, and on his laptop what he saw on the screen, even with unicode cell formatiing was the little boxes!. he updated some of it and when I got it back it was fine on my PC!

Hey ho

Thanks

Mike C,

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Rory,

Mmmm. I’ll take this home over the weekend and see what I get out of XP.
Interestingly I sent it to one of my colleagues who was working from home, and on his laptop what he saw on the screen, even with unicode cell formatiing was the little boxes!. he updated some of it and when I got it back it was fine on my PC!

Hey ho

Thanks

Mike C,

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Mike,

for whatever it’s worth, the attached screenshot shows the various marks correctly in Excel 2003. (I hid cols B,C to take up less space in the shot and included the font box so you could see what the font was set to. Also D1:D3 are in Arial as well.)

Fred

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Rory,

I am using arial unicode, which I have two versions visible in Excel, arial unicode MS and @arial Unicode MS.

Both show a square root as a square root

thanks

Mike C

Reply | Quote

Mike,
I didn’t think you were complaining, I just don’t like to give up at 90% success! It may be due to the fact that I inserted the symbols from Arial Unicode MS (I don’t know if you have that font) or due to different OS and Office versions. You might find that if you use the square root symbol from the Arial font as well as a standard ‘X’ and ‘?’, it then displays correctly.

Reply | Quote

Mike,
You shouldn’t have to set any fonts at all doing it the way I described. I inserted the symbols into three cells (without changing their font from Arial) and then applied the data validation to some other cells, again without changing their font. Everything looked fine to me. See if the attached looks ok to you.

Reply | Quote

Rory, you are 90% brilliant. Real lateral thinking and indeed it works within 2k. As a point and shoot mechanism it is excellent – just set the destination cells to have the unicode font and you are off.

The 10% is that the drop down validations dont show as the choice you are making because they are in the wrong font.

Actually in this case I am only using check and ? so it is really no problem, but the general solution for those occasions when greater choice is in the offing would be more difficult.

Thanks again

Mike C

Reply | Quote

Hi,
Have you tried Data Validation? You can use the Character Map to select the symbols you want and put them into 3 separate cells, then select your entry range, choose Data-Validation, choose List in the Allow box, and select the range with your symbols as the source. Also, ensure that In-cell dropdown is checked. In your entry range you shoudl now get a dropdown box for each cell which contains the tick, cross and question mark to choose from.
Note: I have only tested this on XL2002 but see no reason why it wouldn’t work in 2k.
Hope that helps.

Reply | Quote