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The half symbol in Word???

laytonhayes

laytonhayes

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 26, 2003
32
0
Savannah, GA, USA
I am trying to put a half symbol(½) in Word. I copied this one from a website. However, when I try to paste it into Word it turns into an omega. I have search all of the symbols in Word and have not found any half symbol. Please help, this is really anoying.
 
Wow, that's really weird, especially since the symbol appears correctly in TextEdit. All I can suggest is a work around, which isn't as nice if all you need is the ½ symbol.

In the insert drop-down menu, select "Object..." then "Microsoft Equation". (You must have installed Equation Editor off of the "Extras" package on the Microsoft Office install disk). This'll allow you to create fractions and more elaborate mathematical expressions, but they don't flow as nicely with the text as the ½ symbol does, if that's all you require.
 
Actually, it's weird that all three browsers I tried can display that symbol just fine; that character isn't traditionally present in Mac fonts, whereas a lot of Windows fonts have it. I assume it is because that is a Unicode 1/2 character, so OSX knows how to display it (just as, with proper coding, you can put Japanese right into the middle of any document in OSX, or display Japanese characters inline in a web page in any browser that is Unicode aware). Could also just be that OSX's handling of mapping characters not present in the current font into one that does have it has gotten better.

MS Word, in any case, is NOT very good about handling mixed/non-English character sets or nonstandard characters, and can't deal with Unicode properly, so it doesn't surprise me in the least that it doesn't work properly. The solution is, as telecomm said, to use Equation editor, though if you can find a font that specifically includes the 1/2 glyph, you can type that particular character in that specific font, and it should work.
 
there is a font in the postscript world called (oddly enough) "times fraction"
there are also many of the new open type fonts that have "true" fractions available as part of the glyphs set of the font. the fonts you see here are postscript, the "fraction ssi" are picture of semi circles and half circles etc. the other 2 are true fractions like what you seek.
 
Hm... I just fired up the ever-useful Character Palette (if you do anything with type and don't have that enabled in your keyboard menu, you should), and found that a surprising number of fonts have the 1/2 and 1/4 fraction glyphs present. 1/3 and 1/5 are a lot less common, though; pretty much just Chinese and Japanese fonts, and the Lucida series.

Actually, Lucida Grande seems to have just about every glyph (everything from 7/8 to a variety of other alphabets and obscure characters)... but Word X only seems to be able to access the tiny subset of those characters that can be typed with a standard US keyboard layout, at least according to the "Insert Symbol" pallette in Word.

It would seem that Word X is unable to handle characters outside the scope of the Classic MacOS, which is extremely limited (and doesn't include ½). I don't know if that's a result of it being a Carbon app, or just a poorly written Carbon app. Hopefully the situation is better with Word 2004.

It is interesting to note that I was able to copy and paste a ½ caracter from this page into Word, but it automatically converted it into AppleGothic (an asian font), and refused to switch the character to any other font. The spacing was way off, too, so this doesn't even work as a workaround.
 
Actually, because of Word's Autocorrect, the 1/2 symbol should appear after you type 1/2. Otherwise, I'd Checkout different fonts, because some store the symbols in different locations (key combos).

TEG
 
laytonhayes said:
I am trying to put a half symbol(½) in Word. I copied this one from a website. However, when I try to paste it into Word it turns into an omega. I have search all of the symbols in Word and have not found any half symbol. Please help, this is really anoying.
Click to expand...
Which version of Word are you using?
As others have mentioned, Word's Autocorrect shd do it automatically once you type '1/2'. (I don't like it that way, and have to take the trouble reversing it!). If the option is disabled you can enable it by going to Tools-->AutoCorrect-->Autoformat as you type (2nd tab).

Another way is to select the '1' and turn it into an superscript (Format-->Font), then select the '2' and turn it into a subscript. Not exactly a 'symbol' but close.
 
All of those who've been able to been able to get the ½ symbol through Word's autocorrect, which version of word/fonts are you using?

I've got Word X, version 10.1.4, with autcorrect set as radhak suggests, but still I don't get the ½ symbol when I type 1/2. (I've tried this in a variety of fonts).
 
telecomm said:
All of those who've been able to been able to get the ½ symbol through Word's autocorrect, which version of word/fonts are you using?

I've got Word X, version 10.1.4, with autcorrect set as radhak suggests, but still I don't get the ½ symbol when I type 1/2. (I've tried this in a variety of fonts).
Click to expand...
I don't have access to Macs here at work, shall check and post from home later in the evening today.
 
laytonhayes said:
I thought it used to autoformatte it, but it is not on my version (X.1.4) Anyone out there with 2004, does it have this problem?
Click to expand...

It definitely does this on Windows.... I tried it on my Word.X, and it didn't do it either, including with several fonts (Times New Roman, Times - the default, and Arial). I think I have 10.1.4 - in system profiler, that's what Entourage.X is listed at. BTW, I looked at the MS website and there is a 10.1.5 update, which I just installed. But when I go to the about window in Word, Excel, or PPT, I get a version listed as "Microsoft Word X for Mac Service Release 1". After I ran the 10.1.5, system profiler still called Entourage 10.1.4.... Confusing.
 
mkrishnan said:
I looked at the MS website and there is a 10.1.5 update, which I just installed. But when I go to the about window in Word, Excel, or PPT, I get a version listed as "Microsoft Word X for Mac Service Release 1". After I ran the 10.1.5, system profiler still called Entourage 10.1.4.... Confusing.
Click to expand...

The 10.1.5 number refers to the number of the Office update, and not all components (Word, Excel, etc.) are updated with each of those updates.

I've got all the latest updates (OS, Office X - no Office 2004 yet) on my computer, and still the ½ symbol is not available on the mac version of Word.

However, as Makosuke notes, this character is available through the Character Palette (in just about every font you could possibly use), and can be inserted as a special character in TextEdit. For some reason, Word is unable to access these characters.
 
telecomm said:
I've got all the latest updates (OS, Office X - no Office 2004 yet) on my computer, and still the ½ symbol is not available on the mac version of Word.
Click to expand...

Might be a good reason to get '04, if it works...have to wait for someone who has it to confirm/deny. But then again it's kinda silly to get Office 2004 to get this feature, when its been on the PC since before Office.X :( Maybe I should get VPC and run Office 97? :)
 
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