Euro currency symbol and E2002!
John Chapman
out there and will actually comment.
Now in E97 and even E2000 there was always a problem with the Euro sign in
any of the limited number of applicable fonts at 10 point or below. (It
showed as a vertical line if you zoomed out below 90-100% - it varied
according to the size of the font). You could get round this by going into
the registry and making a very simple tweak but all this is in the Microsoft
Knowledge Base files.
I am now using E2002 and I thought the Euro would work in almost any font
you care to use and in any size and at any zoom I need to use - for the
price of the "upgrade" it blooming well ought to!
So I hadn't given it any thought until a workbook I service for a
client/friend came back to me the other day. I had prepared it in E97 (with
the Euro registry tweak) and it is used on the client's machine in E2000
(also with the tweak) but because of their screen he really has to Zoom out
to 75% to see a decent part of this complex sheet which is in 10 point for
the most part. So of course when I open it, the sheets are zoomed to 75% and
the pretty Euro signs are all little vertical lines even on my virtually
brand new "all singing and dancing" E2002! Now for a moment I thought this
would be cured by saving it under E2002 but there is no such thing or not
one that changes the underlying format.
So! Back to the Knowledge base where there is acceptance that this is still
a problem and offering exactly the same registry tweak they offered for E97
3 years ago almost to the day (25 March 1999).
[XL2002: Euro Currency Character Is Not Displayed Correctly (Q217124)]
But this isn't really a problem, is it Microsoft? Because you could solve it
in a heartbeat if you cared! I think you just forgot to be honest. After all
the Euro is only being used by 12 nations and 300 million people!
For those who think I sound paranoid - the $ sign and £ will display in any
font at any zoom even on my "lowly" UK English version of E2002 so it
certainly isn't a technical problem.
Frankly it is pathetic and really makes me wonder whether this ridiculously
expensive upgrade was worth it. The truth is I already knew it wasn't or not
for me but this shoddy oversight is the final nail in the coffin.
Imagine someone in Portugal or some little business in Greece buying
the full version for the first time at some usury price and the poor man or
woman finding you have to go in to and alter perhaps the most dangerous part
of your machine to show your own currency symbol in a particular way!
ANY comments from anybody welcome but particularly anybody from Microsoft!
Jim Rech
Looks like MS is dragging its feet about designing a better SmallFont. My
sympathies but I don't thnk it's anything personal or even anti-European.
In the meantime, how about adding a message in your app telling users that,
if the € looks odd, they should click the "Fix Euro" button and restart
Excel? The button should run this macro:
''Makes a registry entry that blocks Excel from switching to
'' Small Fonts when Zoom is below a certain level. Small Fonts
'' does not support the Euro character (Q217124)
Sub ExcelBlockFontSubstitute()
Dim wsh As Object
Set wsh = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
wsh.RegWrite "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\" & _
Application.Version & "\Excel\Options\FontSub", 0, "REG_DWORD"
End Sub
--
Jim Rech
Excel MVP
John Chapman
bit kind when we are discussing one of the major world currencies from what
I imagine is Microsoft's second largest market. The most annoying part of
this is that E2002 has an entire suite of Euro tools as an Add In yet a
shortcoming they have known about for over 3 years remains unfixed.
In reality it doesn't affect me or people I work for or know because I will
just go into the registry and 'tweak' it but I do feel for the little
business man from Greece or Portugal or even England who suddenly wonders
where his Euro symbols have gone! I know I did the first time they
disappeared! Most of them have never heard of Microsoft's Knowledge Base let
alone know where and what the registry is!
BTW anybody who hasn't done that registry tweak and needs to, I can assure
them it is very easy and works a treat.
Bearing that in mind is there a technical reason why Microsoft couldn't come
up with a self-installing patch for this?
Thanks for your comments and interest Jim, very much appreciated.
John
"Jim Rech" <jar...@kpmg.com> wrote in message
news:ukgyHvZ0BHA.1680@tkmsftngp05...
> John-
>
> Looks like MS is dragging its feet about designing a better SmallFont. My
> sympathies but I don't thnk it's anything personal or even anti-European.
>
> In the meantime, how about adding a message in your app telling users
that,
> if the ? looks odd, they should click the "Fix Euro" button and restart