Special characters don't appear on the screen

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I have just made the switch from Windows to Linux and have installed
WP8.1 thanks to a great deal of infomation on the web. I have
PCLinuxOS which is Mandrake-based.

My written work entails using lot of special characters. I get these
by choosing Insert > Symbol, choosing a table such and Multinational,
then inserting the character. Most of the characters do not show up on
the screen except as a space and show up in Reveal Codes as other ASCII
characters. They do not print either. This doesn't seem to be related
to a particular font.

Any help would be appreciated.