an old problem solved - unicode is your friend

[Guest]

A fair while back, I seem to remember a flurry of posting about the strange behaviour of some symbol fonts. In case it helps anyone out, here's a happy anecdote from my desk ...

1. made a document in May 2007, using a symbol font to get numbers in a circle for call-outs
2. came back to document a week later, and found that while (1) was still (1), both (2) and (3) had become "hand holding quill"
3. mended document somehow, at least long enough to publish the .pdf

A fortnight ago, document surfaces for review and update ... (1) was still (1), both (2) and (3) had become "hand holding quill"

1. spotted Arial Unicode MS in my fonts list, offering circled numbers from 1 to 20 [U2460 and up]
2. replaced problematic symbol font with Arial Unicode MS and voilà ... robust, longer-lasting call-outs

Minor question – any way of accessing these characters via list-numbering properties?

[MichaelKazlow]

Neils,

While unicode may be the solution for your problem, any bets that unicode support was the cause of your problem as well. My bet the problem started with Frame 8's unicode support. Old documents may become more and more of a problem, due to new unicode support. It would be nice if old documents could be detected and fixes offered. You may figure out a solution, but many have and will not.

...Mike

[Guest]

Niels,

I'm sorry I don't have an answer to your question about autonumbering. But I am interested in the circled numbers for callouts. I am just beginning a document that I plan to use callouts in. I have the Arial Unicode MS font installed and was wondering how those circled numbers are acquired. That is, what keystrokes are required?

Janice

[Arnis Gubins]

Janice,

If you're using FM9, then you can use the internal character mapping utility (File > Utilities > Character Palette...) to insert the appropriate glyph. Once you know the hex numbers of these unicode values, you could also use either the numeric keypad entry method (hold down the ALT key and entter the 4 digits for the values) or FM's hex input method using File > Utilities > Hex Input.

For more information on various input methods, this link might be useful: http://scripts.sil.org/cms/SCRIPTs/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=inputtoollinks

Microsoft's keyboard layout creator can allow you to create a custom virtual keyboard for character input. See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/823010

[Guest]

Thanks, Arnis.

Sorry, forgot to include FM version 8.0p277. I was not able to get the keyboard link to open but I could get the character input page to open, so I will certainly check that information out. I found that the Wingdings2 font has circled numbers but they only go up to 10. The diagram I am adding callouts to has 11 points, of course, so the Arial Unicode font Niels mentioned may be what I need.

Janice