This can really make med furious as a mad rattle-snake.:-(!!

Last night I was editing some documents containing primarely Thai text 
for one of my friends. I of course did the main work in NWP and 
everything showed up and worked just perfect when using the Arial.otf 
(UTF-8/16) font.

My friend absoloutely must have the documents in Word 2003 with 
compatibility for using Word 2007/2010 for Windows. So I of course saved 
the documents in RTF. To control if everything was right, I opened the 
documents in my Word 2008 (Mac) - NOTHING was correct - only squares and 
reversed questionmarks.:-(

On it again... Saved the docs directly into MSWD .doc format. Opened 
again in Word2008. - Still everything was just squares - this time 
though no reversed questionmarks.

Font substitution in both NWP and Word is set to be ArialUnicodeMS.ttf. 
Choosing this font in NWP shows everything correctly.

On it again... Exported the docs as ODT for OpenOffice use... - Opened 
the docs in OOo3.2.1/Mac and everything was correct, opened in 
OOo3.2.1/Win and everything was correct. Now saved the docs from within 
OOo3.2.1 to DOCX format...

Opened the file again in NWP using OOXML converter and everything was 
just showing up as supposed - i.e. correctly with both columns, lists 
and everything else in formatting...

Opened now using OOXML in Word2008 for Mac - again EVERYTHING was just 
squares.:-(

Started up my XPPro and opened the files in Word2003... - Everything 
again was just squares and reversed questionmarks... Default font in my 
Word2003 is set to ArialUnicodeMS.ttf with CyberBit.ttf as substitution 
font. - And of course Font substitution is enabled in all the 
wordprocessors...

Now opened the files in OpenOffice 3.2.1 for Windows - and guess what? - 
EVERYTHING was just showing up correctly...Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.:-((!!!

OK, now I tried to save the docs in these formats for Windows: DOC (.doc 
with graphics compatibility), DOCX, RTF and XML and then again opened 
the files in Word2003... This time no surprise... EVERYTHING was just 
squares.:-(!

I have more different Thai fonts and tried them all one by one - first 
in NWP with correct results, then in OOo - also with correct results, 
but no Word version will show anything usable - ...just squares.:-(!

I /have/ followed all the MS instructions given in this link for using 
Thai text/fonts, still to no aveil.:-(!!
<http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/about-creating-a-thai-docum
ent-HP003089544.aspx>.

I ended up making a copy&paste compatible PDF file, so he can put text 
into a Word document himself, if he wants to. (The docs are meant for 
his wife, who is from Thailand).

One thing is for sure. I simply will not give any money for any of the 
new versions of that crap from that company called Micros**t. And I will 
disrecommend ANYONE ever to spend any money on any of that company's 
products in the future, since they simply can't fix such a problem when 
using neither Unicode nor a simple .ttf font!!!

Cheers, Erik Richard
(who is so mad that he could use the install disk as a frisbee!)
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Erik Richard Sørensen, Member of ADC, <[log in to unmask]>
NisusWriter - The Future In Multilingual Text Processing - www.nisus.com
Openoffice.org - The Modern Productivity Solution - www.openoffice.org
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