TXT Files with French accented characters

[Guest]

We have discoverd a bug in Word 2002, 2003 and 2007

If you open a .TXT file containing French accented characters, Word opens
the File Conversion dialog box and the default encoding is Japanese (Shift
JIS)

If however, you introduce at least one space before the first accented
character in the TXT file, Word opens the file without going through the File
Conversion dialog box and all the accents are fine.

The Regional Options are set for Canadian Multilingual.

I believe this is a bug in the way Word interprets TXT files.

Has anyone alse seen this before?

Thanks
Al

 

[Graham Mayor]

The problem is that if you add non-ascii characters to a plain text file,
there may not be enough information in the file for Word to determine the
correct ANSI coding. It is not a bug so much as a limitation based on
insufficient information. You can either tell Word to use plain text or the
correct decoding which will probably be Western European (Windows)

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP

My web site www.gmayor.com

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[Guest]

I fully understand that as we have Multi-Lingual English French pack
installed - the annoying thing I guess is that all it takes it one <space> to
correctly identify the language. If you open for example a TXT file
containing only the word Québec you will confuse Wod into defaulting to
the Japanese (Shift-JIS) but if you open the a TXT file with the word Qu
ébec Word correctly identifies and opens the file properly without the File
Conversion dialog box.

Thank-you for your answer, perhaps I will send a note to Mictosoft about
this issue.

Al