[Solved] Problem with Bullets

[CrusssDaddy]

I'm creating bullet points with the small black circle icon, but if I close the document and reopen it, the bullets are transformed into little 'Mercedes' symbols. Doesn't matter if I create the bullets using the button on the toolbar or the drop down menu. No matter what, it's the same: the bullets look fine until I close and reopen, and then they are changed. When I email docs, recipients report that they are getting the little Mercedes symbols instead of the normal bullets.

Any suggestions?

Open Office 3.3 on Windows Vista

[Hagar Delest]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

It may be similar as that one: [Solved] Bullet Point Characters Incorrect (but it usually happens on Mac.

Perhaps you're using an old version of .doc. Better use the native format (ODF) when working with OOo. Remember that the .doc import/export filters have been reverse engineered because there was no specification available at that time.

If the file doesn't have to be edited, send it as a PDF.

[RoryOF]

If you save in .odt format, do your bullets change?

[CrusssDaddy]

If you save in .odt format, do your bullets change?

When I save in .odt and reopen, the bullets do not change... so that's progress! But I have to send the document to others, and they have to be able to look at it, edit it, etc. They overwhelmingly have some version of Word. If I send them a .odt, can they still open it and edit it without getting Open Office?

[RoryOF]

The quick answer is No! If they only need to read, then .pdf is good and reliable. Usually a change such as you are experiencing is due to different fonts being used. You may get some help from Hagar's link

Mercedes are up market; isn't it fortunate the symbols are not changing in to Lada symbols?

[CrusssDaddy]

I tried two workarounds from Hagar's link, but neither worked. Frustrating, since this bullet issue seemed to come out of nowhere. I'm using 'Georgia' as my font, so I'll experiment with other fonts...

[RoryOF]

Did you try the solution proffered by Hedrick in Hagar's url?

Tho other solution might be to hand code bullet points using something like a small letter "o", as an interim measure while in search of a final fix.

[CrusssDaddy]

Hedrick's solution is beyond my skills. I'm going to keep fiddling with it.

[CrusssDaddy]

Cut 'n' pasting normal bullets from other documents seems to be working.

[RoryOF]

Select one of those "normal" bullets and see what the font used for it is. Then it ought be a matter of instructing OOo to use that font for its bullets.

[Hagar Delest]

Worth a try: instead of using the bullet button in the toolbar, use a list style (open the Stylist with F11, then last icon in the left group).

I've noticed that such formatting is more robust during export when applied through styles.

Please add '[Solved]' at beginning of your first post title (edit button) if your issue has been fixed.

[CrusssDaddy]

Worth a try: instead of using the bullet button in the toolbar, use a list style (open the Stylist with F11, then last icon in the left group).

I've noticed that such formatting is more robust during export when applied through styles.

Please add '[Solved]' at beginning of your first post title (edit button) if your issue has been fixed.

No, using F11 doesn't make the normal bullets any more permanent. Instructing OOo to use my font for bullets doesn't work either.

Cut 'n' pasting bullets from documents created prior to the mishap is the only work around that has proven effective - let me know if that counts as solved, and I'll adjust the first post.

[Hagar Delest]

Can you upload sample files (see: How to attach a document here)? The .odt and the .doc versions.

[CrusssDaddy]

Can you upload sample files (see: How to attach a document here)? The .odt and the .doc versions.

Here's the .doc (the normal bullets should appear since I cut 'n' pasted them)...

[CrusssDaddy]

Can you upload sample files (see: How to attach a document here)? The .odt and the .doc versions.

Here's the .odt...

[RoryOF]

In
http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/ ... =7&t=34045
there is discussion on using special characters as bullets. In course of the discussion Acknak recommends against use of Wingdings font because of irregular coding, which leads to anomalies.

[Hagar Delest]

I get exactly the same rendering on my W2k system. No change in the bullet (I've tried both your .doc file and an export from your .odt file):

MS Word.png (13.02 KiB) Viewed 15791 times

[CrusssDaddy]

Yeah, my checkmark bullets work fine, and the normal ones on that .doc look fine because I used my workaround. Try these attachments instead - in the .doc, they were created as normal bullets but have transformed into Mercedes symbols.

[CrusssDaddy]

And the .odt...

[Hagar Delest]

Using styles (with the Tahoma font for the symbol):

bullets test Hagar.odt

(9.85 KiB) Downloaded 296 times

bullets test Hagar.doc

(11 KiB) Downloaded 252 times

Note that you can upload up to 3 attachments in a post, no need to make a new post each time.

Please add '[Solved]' at beginning of your first post title (edit button) if your issue has been fixed.

[Bill]

In Vista, a bullet applied by using the Bullets toolbar button has the Segoe UI font. When the document is saved in DOC format by Writer, the Segoe UI font is changed to the Wingdings2 font, resulting in a different bullet character being displayed. Since the Segoe UI font was first used in Vista, this problem may not be seen by users of Linux or older versions of Windows.

Yeah, my checkmark bullets work fine, and the normal ones on that .doc look fine because I used my workaround. Try these attachments instead - in the .doc, they were created as normal bullets but have transformed into Mercedes symbols.

The use of a list style with the Tahoma font as suggested by Hagar will fix the problem, but it is also possible to fix the problem by changing the font of the bullets directly. Open the .doc file, right-click one of the lines with the wrong bullet and select Numbering/Bullets. On the Bullets and Numbering dialog, select the Options tab, select Level 1, then click the Character button. On the Special Characters dialog, select the Tahoma font, then select the bullet character and OK out. Your bullets should now be correct and should not change after saving and re-opening the document.

[jw011]

I recently had exactly the same problem and found another way to solve this issue. This only works if you use google docs to upload the .odt file. Before uploading select the option to convert to google docs format. View the document in google docs. Select file and then download as word. After the download you can edit the bullets and the formatting will stay the same after saving.