[Solved] Windows playing card symbols not shown on Mac

[tjkristof]

I have been using OpenOffice on a Windows PC for years. Just added a MacBook Air. Both computers are fully up to date with OpenOffice and operating systems (Windows 10 Home and macOS 13.0.1). Symbols used in docs created on PC do not appear when doc is opened on the MacBook -- math symbols etc. Docs created on the MacBook open properly on the PC. I cannot find a reason in the OpenOffice resources.

Edit: Changed subject, was Symbols lost when transferring odt from one operating system to another  Make your post understandable by others  -- MrProgrammer, forum moderator

[RoryOF]

Check that the same fonts are installed on both computers.

[tjkristof]

Yup, Arial on both.

[John_Ha]

Please upload a small file showing the problem so that it can be analysed.

Press POSTREPLY and click the Upload attachment tab below where you type (128 kB max); or use a file share site such as mediafire, Dropbox or Google Drive for a larger file.

Remember that the font displayed in the document's Font selection box is the font the document is calling for at the cursor position. This may not be the font being used to display or print the document because, if you do not have the font being called for installed on your PC, Windows (or other operating system) will silently substitute an alternative, available font without telling you. This will almost certainly cause different line spills and page spills.

The Testfonts add-on is invaluable to check which fonts are being called for in a document, and which are missing and have therefore been substituted. Note that some fonts do not have a font file for, say, Italic; and in that case, when Italic is called for, Windows itself applies a slant to the font to simulate Italic.

You can check which font is being used to display text by highlighting the text and Format > Character > Font ...

[tjkristof]

The files mentioned here are attached
The "symbol test screen.odt" is a page in a larger file created on the Windows 10 PC. It was uploaded to iCloud and opened on the MacBook running the Ventura OS. The display on the MacBook shows a small square with an enclosed question mark in each position where a playing card suit symbol appeared. When renamed and downloaded to the PC, all the playing card symbols returned. I could not present an actual "file" showing the missing symbols because no matter how I tried to re-transmit them to the PC, the squares disappeared and the suit symbols returned. The visual of the appearance as shown on the MacBood is shown in the screenshot taken at 12.08.51, which was rejected as too large a file to attach.
So, in a portion of the disfigured file on the MacBook, I corrected the first few paragraphs by reinserting the playing card suit symbols in the area above the dashed line in the second .odt file.
The modified file was then downloaded from iCloud to the PC and arrived with all the suit symbols in place. The returned file is attached as "symbol test screen second.odt"
I installed and used Testfonts on both machines and checked each of the card suit symbols to confirm that both computers had the full Arial font sets. Each file returned:
Missing fonts - found: 0 times
Direct formatting fonts - found: 3 times
 Arial  Regular
 Arial  Bold
 Arial  Italic

Any further advice on this problem will be appreciated

symbol test screen(1).odt

(21.7 KiB) Downloaded 111 times

symbol test screen second(1).odt

(32.87 KiB) Downloaded 116 times

[Zizi64]

I just checked the unicode values of your sysmbols. It seems, the other applications uses Arial font, but the coding of the another Arial font version is not same.
In my Calc file you can see the code values of your symbols with Win10 Arial font, and the DejaVu font version of the code. The DejaVu font family is bundled to the LibreOffice installer.

CardSymbols.ods

(14.18 KiB) Downloaded 118 times

Maybe it is better to use emedded fonts in your document. Use the really free and open source fonts - those has not limitations for the embedding process.

[MrProgrammer]

Hi, and welcome to the forum. Thank you for the attachments. They immediately show what the problem is.

Symbols used in docs created on PC do not appear when doc is opened on the MacBook -- math symbols etc.

You have five different characters which display as ⍰. These characters are U+F0A7, U+F0A8, U+F0A9, U+F0AA, and U+F0B3. The first four are intended to be playing card suit symbols and the last the ≥ operator. The problem is that you are using characters from one of the Private Use Areas. If you want your document to display properly on different operating systems or for other people you may sent it to, you must avoid the Private Use characters.

• Private-use characters are assigned Unicode code points whose interpretation is not specified by this standard and whose use may be determined by private agreement among cooperating users. These characters are designated for private use and do not have defined, interpretable semantics except by private agreement.
• In old versions of its RichEdit component, Microsoft mapped U+F020–U+F0FF within the PUA to symbol fonts. For any character in this range, RichEdit would show a character from a symbol font instead of the end-user-defined character (EUDC)

Microsnot and Apple are not "cooperating users" and do not agree on how these Private Use characters should be displayed, so your document displays differently on the Mac than it did on the PC. Fortunately, there are Unicode-defined characters for all five of these symbols. Just use Edit → Find and Replace → Replace All five times to change the Private Use characters to the Unicode-defined ones. I was able to copy and paste the characters from this forum page into the Find and Replace dialog. Five Replace All operations fixed the document so the symbols display correctly on my Mac. The same document should display properly on a PC too.

Name               Unicode block          Code Symbol
Club               Miscellaneous Symbols  2663   ♣
Microsnot Club     Private Use Area       F0A7   
Diamond            Miscellaneous Symbols  2666   ♦
Microsnot Diamond  Private Use Area       F0A8   
Greater or equal   Mathematical Operators 2265   ≥
Microsnot ≥        Private Use Area       F0B3   
Heart              Miscellaneous Symbols  2665   ♥
Microsnot Heart    Private Use Area       F0A9   
Spade              Miscellaneous Symbols  2660   ♠
Microsnot Spade    Private Use Area       F0AA   

Creating Card Suit Symbol Shortcuts in OpenOffice For Bridge
Using the Insert → Special Character dialog
Mac FAQ Q13: How do I type accented characters (é, ö, ñ, ç etc.) on a Mac?
Mac FAQ Q14: How do I enter untypeable characters (Unicode) on a Mac?

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