Grace shared this with us in microsoft.public.word.newusers:
Thanks..
What do you mean look up the unicode for the fraction???
What is Unicode?
Unicode provides a unique number for every character,
no matter what the platform,
no matter what the program,
no matter what the language.
Fundamentally, computers just deal with numbers. They store letters and
other characters by assigning a number for each one. Before Unicode was
invented, there were hundreds of different encoding systems for
assigning these numbers. No single encoding could contain enough
characters: for example, the European Union alone requires several
different encodings to cover all its languages. Even for a single
language like English no single encoding was adequate for all the
letters, punctuation, and technical symbols in common use.
These encoding systems also conflict with one another. That is, two
encodings can use the same number for two different characters, or use
different numbers for the same character. Any given computer
(especially servers) needs to support many different encodings; yet
whenever data is passed between different encodings or platforms, that
data always runs the risk of corruption.
Unicode is changing all that!
Unicode provides a unique number for every character, no matter what
the platform, no matter what the program, no matter what the language.
The Unicode Standard has been adopted by such industry leaders as
Apple, HP, IBM, JustSystem, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Sun, Sybase, Unisys
and many others. Unicode is required by modern standards such as XML,
Java, ECMAScript (JavaScript), LDAP, CORBA 3.0, WML, etc., and is the
official way to implement ISO/IEC 10646. It is supported in many
operating systems, all modern browsers, and many other products. The
emergence of the Unicode Standard, and the availability of tools
supporting it, are among the most significant recent global software
technology trends.
Incorporating Unicode into client-server or multi-tiered applications
and websites offers significant cost savings over the use of legacy
character sets. Unicode enables a single software product or a single
website to be targeted across multiple platforms, languages and
countries without re-engineering. It allows data to be transported
through many different systems without corruption.
Shamelessly copied from:
http://www.unicode.org/