[Tamara1969]

Hello everyone,

Does anyone know where to find a quick reference list of all symbols in MS Word 2000 Professional? Everytime I look for a specific symbol I waste so much time as there is about 20 font categories and 40 subset categories to look in. Does such a list exist?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

[WhitPhil]

Symbols should be a function of the fonts installed.

IE: If you did not have WingDings installed, those symbol would not be available to you.

So, if you have 20 Symbol fonts installed, maybe the easiest is to get a Font program that will allow you to print them out? Or, give you easier access to them to browse for a specific item.
Or did I misunderstand?

[Tamara1969]

Thanks Phil, I am not sure that our IS Department at work would approve of a font program, so I dont think that is an option. I was hoping that somewhere in MS Word they had a list of symbols rather than having to go into each subset looking for it. For example when looking for the checkmark, it took me 15 minutes to find it. When i found it I assigned a shortcut key to it so I wouldnt waste my time again.

[WhitPhil]

How are you actually "looking" for a symbol??

Insert > Symbol ??

[Tamara1969]

Yes.

[cristobal03]

Howdy, welcome to TSG.

I wonder if you couldn't use VBA code to build a document that had each symbol, grouped by font, with an example of itself and its corresponding character code/description.

I've never done it, but it'd be a little something like this, I guess:

Option Explicit
Option Compare Binary

Private Sub MySymbolsList()
  Dim saFontArray() As String
  Dim strFonts As String
  Dim intFontCount As Integer
  Dim intCharCount As Integer

  ' Some of the characters in the constant below might
  ' cause errors, i'm just guessing...quotes would, for sure.
  ' You might be able to circumvent this by establishing a
  ' RegExp object, which requires a reference (I'm not sure which).
  Const ALPHA_NUMERICS = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ" & _
                         "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz" & _
                         "1234567890!@#$%^&*()-=_+,./;[]\<>?:{}|`~"

  strFonts = "Symbol Font 1,Symbol Font 2,Symbol Font 3,Symbol Font n"
  saFontArray = Split(strFonts, ",")

  With ActiveDocument.Range
    .Font.Size = 14
    For intFontCount = 0 To UBound(saFontArray)
      .Font.Name = "Arial"
      .InsertAfter "Font Name: " & _
                    saFontArray(intFontCount) & _
                    vbCr
      For intCharCount = 0 To Len(ALPHA_NUMERICS)
        .Font.Name = saFontArray(intFontCount)
        .InsertAfter Mid(ALPHA_NUMERICS, intCharCount, 1) & " = "
        .Font.Name = "Arial"
        .InsertAfter Mid(ALPHA_NUMERICS, intCharCount, 1) & "     "
      Next intCharCount
      .InsertAfter vbCr & vbCr
    Next intFontCount
  End With
End Sub

That's just airware, but it compiles, so. I'm not sure if that's what you mean?

Otherwise I got nothin.

HTH

chris.

[cristobal03]

[bump]

You could also use the character map, though it's probably about the same amount of time.

chris.

[Tamara1969]

Thanks Cristo, however you lost me the the VBA Code reply lol. Is the Character map that you are referring to the one that is in Insert Symbols?

[cristobal03]

Don't worry 'bout the code, it works (with a couple of small tweaks; am testing now) but needs a little work.

The character map can be found by clicking Start-->Programs-->Accessories-->System Tools-->Character Map. It's a utility that lists the keycode combination for every character in a font. I don't know if it'll be any handier than Insert-->Symbol..., but it might help.

chris.

[cristobal03]

[bump]

Just checked to see what Insert-->Symbol... is (I've never used it). That's a big nix on the character map, it's the same thing, plus the hassle of copy/pasting.

Lemme get this code working, I think it'll give you what you're after.

chris.

[Tamara1969]

OK gotcha, however you are right when you say that it may not be any handier. Just frustrating when you are looking for something specific and have to scroll through everything to find it. Maybe I am asking for something that is just not available.

Hey could be an idea for a new book LOL "A Quick Guide to Finding Those Frustrating Symbols That You Never Knew Existed".

[cristobal03]

Yeah, there are a lot of accessibility issues that aren't addressed by program designers.

But, the code I'm writing will (hopefully) build a document that looks something like

Font Name: Symbol
A = [some symbol] B = [B's symbol]
...
a = [another symbol] b = [b's symbol]
...
0 = [you get the point] 1 = [this symbol]

Font Name: Another Symbol Font
A = [etc.]

The only problem is, I don't know how to change the font of just one character. I'm really close though, I'll let you know.

chris.

[cristobal03]

Welp, I got it working. It prints a page per font name, with the corresponding symbols.

Below is the code:

Option Explicit
Option Compare Binary

Private Sub MySymbolFonts()

' Procedure to go through a list of user-defined symbol fonts and
' display their alphanumeric representations.

  Dim saFontArray() As String
  Dim strFonts As String
  Dim intFontCount As Integer
  Dim intCharCount As Integer

  ' Note that the below constant does not include single or
  ' double quotes, because that would affect the string.
  ' I'm not sure how you'd get around that.
  Const ALPHA_NUMERICS = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ" & _
                         "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz" & _
                         "1234567890!@#$%^&*()-=_+,./;[]\<>?:{}|`~"

  ' You'd change this string to represent whatever fonts you
  ' wanted to list. For example:
  '
  ' strFonts = "Wingdings,Wingdings 2,Wingdings 3"
  '
  strFonts = "Symbol Font 1,Symbol Font 2,Symbol Font 3"
  saFontArray = Split(strFonts, ",")

  ' Set the initial font
  ActiveDocument.Range.Font.Name = "Courier New"

  With ActiveDocument.Range
    .Font.Size = 14
    For intFontCount = 0 To UBound(saFontArray)
      If intFontCount > 0 Then
        .Characters(.End).InsertBreak wdPageBreak
      End If
      .InsertAfter "Font Name: " & saFontArray(intFontCount)
      .InsertAfter vbCr
      For intCharCount = 1 To Len(ALPHA_NUMERICS)
        If (intCharCount Mod 5 = 0) Then .InsertAfter vbCr
        .InsertAfter Mid(ALPHA_NUMERICS, intCharCount, 1)
        .Characters(.End - 1).Font.Name = "Courier New"
        .InsertAfter " is " & Mid(ALPHA_NUMERICS, intCharCount, 1) & "   "
        .Characters(.End - 4).Font.Name = saFontArray(intFontCount)
      Next intCharCount
    Next intFontCount
  End With
End Sub

I've attached an example document. If you want help on how to apply this procedure to your own needs, post back please.

HTH

chris.

[edit]
Just so's you know, there's a lot of room for improvement. One easy thing that I should've done would be to set up 4 tab stops at regular intervals rather than using manual spaces. Also, the user has to hard-code font names into the script. This could be revised with a multi-select listbox in a userform, I guess.

Anyway, just saying this was quick and dirty to accommodate OP.
[/edit]

[Tamara1969]

Wow, you are a genius cristo! Thank you so much. Please let me know how to apply this. I am hoping that I can do it from my work computer. IS Dept. may have to do it for me as alot of functions we dont have access to.

This is my first time coming in here and I have never met a friendlier bunch of people all willing to help everyone out. Thanks again.

[cristobal03]

First, to save you some trouble, could you please list the font names for every symbol font for which you want a reference?

Symbol, Wingdings, Webdings, etc...

I'll put them in my code, and then give you a step-by-step instruction set for creating and running the macro.

chris.