WD97: Extended Characters Improperly Converted in ASCII RTF File

ID: Q171071

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Word 97 for Windows

SYMPTOMS

If you create or edit RTF (Rich Text Format) code and specify the ASCII character set, Microsoft Word 97 may incorrectly map the extended ASCII characters to extended ANSI characters. This results in incorrect characters appearing when you open the document in Word 97.

CAUSE

Word 97 ignores the RTF keyword \pc that is used to specify the ASCII character set. Instead, Word uses the default ANSI character set.

Because ASCII and ANSI have different extended character sets, when Word maps extended ASCII characters to their equivalent ANSI values, these are different characters.

RESOLUTION

To correct this problem, install Microsoft Word 97 Service Release 1 (SR- 1).

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Word 97 for Windows. This problem was corrected in Microsoft Word 97 SR-1.

For additional information about SR-1, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q172475 OFF97: How to Obtain and Install MS Office 97 SR-1

MORE INFORMATION

When you create or edit RTF code, you can specify the character set the file uses with the following keywords: \ansi, \mac, \pc, and \pca. Word 97 ignores the \pc keyword that specifies the ASCII character set, and instead uses the default ANSI character set.

NOTE: Earlier versions of Word correctly interpreted the character set keyword.

REFERENCES

For more information about codepages and international characters, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q168063 WD97: LineDraw and Extended Characters May Map Incorrectly

Q159471 WD97: How to Install the Far East Support Files

For more information about international features, click the Office Assistant, type "international features" (without the quotation marks), click Search, and then click one of the topics.

NOTE: If the Assistant is hidden, click the Office Assistant button on the Standard toolbar. If Word Help is not installed on your computer, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q120802 Office: How to Add/Remove a Single Office Program or Component

Additional query words: SR1 release1 8.0 8.00

Keywords : kbusage word97
Version : WINDOWS:97
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbbug