Microsoft Office 2003 Editions Resource Kit [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Sharing Multilingual Files Between Different Versions of Office

File compatibility affects how users share files between different versions of Microsoft Office applications. Language compatibility also affects how users share different language versions of Office files—for example, there are complications when sharing files from the Japanese version of Microsoft Office 95 with files from Microsoft Office 2003 when using the Multilingual User Interface Pack (MUI Pack). Several options can help you share files across language versions of Office when used correctly.

Sharing Office files across language versions

When all users in an international organization are using Microsoft Office 2003, there are relatively few complications—whether the files are from Microsoft Office 2003 with the Microsoft Office 2003 Multilingual User Interface Pack (MUI Pack) or from localized versions of Office 2003. Even during a staged deployment of applications within the Microsoft Office System, you can still share files with older localized versions of Office.

If you are using a staged deployment to install Office 2003, you can save files created in Office 2003 applications to file formats for use with previous localized versions of Office applications. This allows the earlier versions of Office applications to open the file, yet it also preserves the Office 2003 multilingual features. However, these file formats vary by Office application and are not the same as the exact file formats used by previous localized versions. Thus, if you save Office 2003 files in the exact format of the previous localized version, multilingual features of Office 2003 are lost. In other words, earlier releases of Office may or may not support the multiple language handling abilities of the current version of the application.

For example, Microsoft Office Word 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2003, and Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 can display multiple Asian languages in the same file. When these files are saved in the file format of versions of Office earlier than Office 2000, the multi-Asian language feature is lost and only one of the languages is displayed correctly.

Unicode allows you to share multilingual files between Office 2003, Office XP, Office 2000, and Office 97 without any loss of text. Versions of Office previous to Office 97 might not properly display multilingual text from an Office 2003 file, because they are based on code pages, not Unicode. For more information about Unicode and how it supports multilingual documents in Office, see “Unicode Support and Multilingual Office Documents” in Chapter 17, “Unicode Support in Office 2003.”

Your operating system can determine whether you can display Asian or right-to-left text (such as Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi, or Urdu) between different versions of Office.

To display a right-to-left language, you must set the regional and language options of the operating system to the right-to-left language you want to use. To display Asian languages, note the following:

Office 2003, Office XP, and Office 2000 provide files—including fonts—that extend an operating system’s ability to support Asian languages.

The Office 97 Asian support files—including fonts—extend an operating system’s ability to support Asian languages.

To display or edit Asian text in an older version of Office (earlier than Office 97), you must configure the regional and language options of the operating system to match the Asian language you want to use.

Sharing Access database files across language versions

Microsoft Office Access 2003 can open databases created in any previous localized version of Access.

Opening Access databases prior to Access 2003

Because the default file format in Access 2003 is the same as in Access 2000, all Access 2000 database users can share databases with Access 2003 users. However, if you are using Access 97 or earlier and only part of your organization is upgrading to Access 2002, you might want to leave existing databases in the format of your previous version of Access so all users can open the databases.

If you are using Access 2003 and want to open databases in Access 97 or earlier, you might not be able to open the older databases if the language version of your operating system differs from the operating system on the computer used to create the database. Access databases are saved in a particular sort order, and the default sort order matches the sort order used by the operating system on the computer used to create the database.

For example, a database created in Access 95 on a computer running the Arabic version of Microsoft Windows 95 uses the Arabic sort order by default and cannot be opened on a computer running the English version of Microsoft Windows 95/98 or the English version of Windows NT 4.0. The file can only be opened on an operating system that can support the language and regional settings of the application and the operating system together.

Opening forms and reports from previous localized versions

Access 2003 can open and read the English and European-language content of forms and reports from any previous localized version of Access. However, if the database is based on a code page other than Latin 1 (code page 1252) some text might be rendered incorrectly.

For example, a database created in Access 95 on the Greek version of Windows 95 is based on the Greek code page. When an Access 2003 user running the English version of Windows 98 opens the database, the operating system maps code points to the new code page, so some Greek characters might appear as accented European characters, question marks, open boxes, or other unintelligible characters.

Converting databases from previous localized versions of Access

If Access 2003 users do not need to share a database from a previous localized version of Access with users of the older version, convert the database to the Access 2000 file format. If the database was saved in the default sort order on a computer running a non-English version of the operating system, convert it by using the Convert database option in Access 2003 and saving it in the Access 2000 file format. Access converts the data to Unicode during the conversion process.

Using the original language sort order

When you convert an older database to the Access 2000 file format, Access uses the sort order to determine which code page to use for converting the data to Unicode. Access 2003 associates the General sort order with the Western European code page, so if non–Western European data is stored in the General sort order, the data corrupts when Access 2003 converts it.

Therefore, if the older database is based on a non-English version of the operating system, and it is saved in the General sort order, you must compact it again in the original language sort order before converting it to the Access 2000 file format. Otherwise, Access 2003 cannot properly convert the data to Unicode.

To convert a localized database to the Access 2000 file format

Open the database in the original, localized version of Access.

You must open the database on a computer running the same language version of the operating system as that used to create the database, or you can open the database on a computer running Windows 2000 SP3 or Windows XP with regional and language options set to support the original sort order.





Change the sort order to match the regional and language options of the operating system, and then compact the database again.

The steps for changing sort order and compacting a database vary with each version of Access. For more information, see Access Help.





Start Access 2003, but do not open the database.





On the Tools menu, point to Database Utilities, point to Convert Database, and then click To Access 2002–Access 2003 File Format.





In the Database to Convert From dialog box, select the database you want to convert, and click Convert.

Specifying the code page for the General sort order

If the older database is in a language that had no sort order in earlier versions of Access, you can still convert the database to the Access 2000 file format.

For example, databases in earlier versions of Access based on Vietnamese, Farsi, or a Baltic version of the operating system (Estonian, Latvian, or Lithuanian) use the General sort order by default because previous versions of Access did not support sort orders for those languages. To convert these databases, you must create a registry entry to prevent Access 2003 from corrupting the non–Western European data.

To convert non–Western European databases that use the General sort order

If you are converting an Access version 1.x or 2.0 database, go to the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Jet\4.0\Engines\Jet 2.x


or

If you are converting an Access 95 or 97 database, go to the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Jet\4.0\Engines\Jet 3.x






In the Jet 2.x or Jet 3.x subkey, create a new value entry named ForceCp and set the value to ANSI to use the computer’s default code page.

You can specify a different code page by setting the value to the code page number, such as 1257 for Windows Baltic Rim.





Convert the database to the Access 2000 file format.





Delete the ForceCP value entry from the registry so that Access 2003 reverts to using the sort order of a database to determine the code page.

Removing conflicting data to solve indexing problems

Access 2003 upgrades some sort orders so that they differ from previous versions of Access. In the new sorting, characters that were considered different in older databases might be considered the same in Access 2003. As a result, the converted database might contain conflicting data, making it impossible to create a unique index for some tables. To create a unique index on the affected tables, you must remove the conflicting data.

A similar problem might occur when changing the sort order of a database. Characters might be different in one language but equivalent in another language. For example, the Western European lowercase i and uppercase I are considered equivalent when sorting alphabetically. But in Turkish a lowercase i might be dotted or not dotted, and the two i characters are not considered equivalent when sorting alphabetically. Because they are considered equivalent in the General sort order, however, these characters can create conflicting data when you upgrade a Turkish database to the Access 2000 file format.

Sharing Excel workbooks across language versions

In Excel 2003 you can open and edit any workbook created in a previous localized version of Excel, regardless of the language, provided the operating system supports the language of the file. For example, you can use Excel 2003 to open and edit a Korean Excel 2000 file on an operating system configured for Korean. If you need to share files across languages (for example, opening a Korean Excel workbook on a Spanish system), it is recommended that you use Windows 2000 SP3 or Windows XP; each supports multiple languages, keyboard locales, and other regional settings.

Users of Excel 2003 and previous localized versions can share workbooks as follows. In Excel 2003, you can open and save:

Localized Excel 5/95 files only on a same-language operating system (since these files do not use Unicode).

On Windows 2000 SP3, this requires that the regional options be set to the same language of the operating system used to create the Excel file.

Any Excel 97 or Excel 2000 file without language limitations, providing the operating system is set to the same language and regional support options as the operating system the file was created on.

European, Asian, and complex script (Hebrew, Arabic, Thai, and Vietnamese) files in the Excel 97/2000 format, providing the operating system is set to the same language and regional support options as the operating system the file was created on.

Platform support for multilingual file sharing

Windows XP provides our best support for organizations with requirements for multilingual file sharing. In Windows XP, you can enable support for multiple languages or even change your code page using the Regional and Language Options utility in Control Panel. If you must open and edit Excel workbooks in multiple languages on the same computer, it is recommended that you use the Windows XP operating system.

To view an Excel file in a language other than the default language on Windows XP, check to be sure that the other language is enabled in the Regional and Language Options utility. The correct characters will be displayed when you open, edit, and save the file when the correct settings are used. This works for all Unicode Excel versions (Excel 97 and later, including Excel 2003).

Multilingual file sharing with non-Unicode files

Sharing multilingual files that cannot support Unicode can be a problem. Files that do not support Unicode include Excel files created in versions earlier than Excel 97 (including Excel 5 and Excel 95), converted files saved from another application using any file format previous to Excel 97, or Lotus files. Opening these files on a computer that does not support the localized version of these files will not work properly.

With Windows XP, you can change the code page to the correct language by using the Regional and Language Options tool. Now you can view and edit the non-Unicode file that was created in the other language.

Sharing FrontPage files across language versions

Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 allows you to work with more languages and characters than you can with previous versions. FrontPage now has full Unicode support and recognizes more HTML 4.0 character entity references than do previous versions. However, file names and URLs are still dependent on regional and language options of the operating system. To help ensure that all users can access files on a FrontPage server, it is recommended that you use ASCII file names (characters from the numeric 32 to 255 range of the ASCII character set).

Character entity references make up a set of HTML characters that are represented by easy-to-remember mnemonic names. For example, the character entity reference å specifies a lowercase a topped by a ring (). It’s easier to remember å than it is to remember &229;.

In FrontPage 2003, you can open and edit any document created in FrontPage 2002, FrontPage 2000, FrontPage 98, or FrontPage 97, regardless of the language used in the document, provided the operating system supports the language of the file.

The enhanced language features in FrontPage 2003 affect file sharing between FrontPage 2003 and previous versions in the following ways:

In a folder list or view in FrontPage 2003, folder and file names are displayed correctly regardless of your default language.

However, to open or save files, the code page of the file name must be supported by the operating system. This does not affect the content of the document, just the file name.

If you use FrontPage 2003 to create a file in some languages, such as Thai, you cannot open or edit that file in FrontPage 97 or FrontPage 98.

If you try to open the file, both FrontPage 97 and FrontPage 98 will display an error message.

If you use FrontPage 2003 to create a document that contains a Unicode character, such as Β for the Greek capital letter beta (), you cannot display that character in FrontPage 2000 or earlier versions.

If you save the document in a version of FrontPage earlier than FrontPage 2002, the Unicode character is deleted.

If you use FrontPage 2003 to create a document that contains an HTML 4.0 character entity reference, you cannot edit that character in FrontPage 2000 or earlier versions.

The character entity reference appears as δ and is not deleted if you save the document in a version earlier than FrontPage 2002.

Exchanging Outlook messages across language versions

Enhancements in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 make it easier to exchange Outlook messages across language versions. You can enable multilingual display support for Outlook, and you can specify Auto-Select Outbound Encoding for all mail messages. As in Outlook 2000, Outlook 2003 supports Unicode in the body of mail messages.

Enabling multilingual display support for Outlook

There are two ways to enable Outlook to display content in multiple languages—through Office Setup or the Regional and Language Options tool in Control Panel. Please note that multilingual support must be installed on both the sending and receiving sides of an e-mail exchange to help ensure full functionality.

The first way to install multilingual support is through Office Setup. Font support may have to be added manually by following these steps:

Rerun Setup, and then select Add/Remove components.





Expand the Office Shared Features section, and then under International Support, make sure the font corresponding to the desired language is installed locally.





Select OK to apply the changes.

The second way to install multilingual support is through the operating system.

Installing multilingual support for Windows 2000 users

In Control Panel, double-click Regional Options.





Click the General tab.





In the list shown under Language settings for the system, select the check boxes next to the languages you want to use for sending and receiving messages.





Click OK.

Installing multilingual support for Windows XP users

In Control Panel, double-click Regional and Language Options.





Click the Regional Options tab.





In the Standards and formats section, select the default language you want to use.





Click the Languages tab.





Click the Details button in the Text services and input languages section.





Set the Default input language to the language you want to use.





Add any keyboard support you need to support the alternate languages you may switch between in the Installed services section.





Select the appropriate language support options for the selected languages in the Supplemental Language support section.





Click the Advanced tab.





Choose the appropriate settings in the Language for non-Unicode programs section as needed.





Adjust the Code page conversion tables as needed.

Outlook data that is not in the body of the message—such as Contacts, Tasks, and the To and Subject lines of messages—are limited to characters defined by the system code page. Such characters might be unintelligible for a recipient whose operating system uses a different code page.

Specifying character encoding

In addition to enabling multilingual display support for Outlook, you can specify the character encoding (also known as the code page) of the message being sent.

It is recommended that you rely on the new Auto-Select Outbound Encoding feature, which was introduced with Outlook 2002. This feature is automatically switched on when you have Internet Explorer 5.5 or later installed. Auto-Select Outbound Encoding scans the entire text of outgoing messages to determine a minimal popular encoding capable of representing all characters and is optimized so the majority of the receiving e-mail programs can interpret and render the content.

You can also manually select an encoding that supports the characters being sent and that the recipient’s e-mail application can interpret. For example, if all users’ e-mail applications support multilingual Unicode data, Unicode (UTF-8) encoding is an excellent choice, since it supports one of the largest ranges of characters for different scripts.

To enable Auto-Select Outbound Encoding in Outlook 2003

On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Mail Format tab.





Click International Options, and select the Auto-Select encoding for outgoing messages check box.





Select a character encoding in the Preferred encoding for outgoing messages box.

This encoding is used by Auto-Select Outbound Encoding in cases where more than one minimal popular encoding can represent all the text. If you prefer, you can manually specify the character encoding.

To manually specify character encoding in Outlook 2003

On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Mail Format tab.





Click International Options, and clear the Auto-Select encoding for outgoing messages check box.





Select a character encoding in the Preferred encoding for outgoing messages box.

This encoding is now used for all messages you create, regardless of the text (characters) you type into them. Note that the Auto-Select encoding for outgoing messages check box is only available if you have Internet Explorer 5.5 or later installed.





If you want message flags and Forward and Reply headers to be in English, select the Use English for message flags and Use English for message headers on replies and forwards check boxes.

If you clear these check boxes, message flags and headers match the language of the Outlook user interface, and e-mail applications that run in another language might not display the text properly.

When you click Send To on the File menu in Office applications to create e-mail messages, the content of the message is saved in HTML format. The Preferred encoding for outgoing messages setting in Outlook determines the character encoding for the message, or if Auto-Select Outbound Encoding is activated, Outlook automatically selects an appropriate encoding.

When you do not want to rely on Auto-Select Outbound Encoding, you can manually set the encoding of mail messages by picking an appropriate encoding from the Format.Encoding list. If you do rely on the Auto-Select Encoding feature, Outlook will always show Auto-Select in the Format.Encoding menu and will not allow users to manually overwrite the option.

Sharing PowerPoint presentations across language versions

Localized Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 can open and read PowerPoint 2003 presentations directly, but localized PowerPoint 95 must have the PowerPoint 97 converter for PowerPoint 95 installed, or PowerPoint 2003 presentations must be saved in PowerPoint 97-2002 & 95 format.

PowerPoint 4.0 users can open PowerPoint 2003 presentations if they install the PowerPoint 97 converter for PowerPoint 4.0.

Users of PowerPoint 2000 and previous localized versions can share presentations as follows:

In PowerPoint 2000, you can open and edit any presentation created in a previous localized version of PowerPoint, regardless of the language, provided the operating system supports the language of the file.

In localized PowerPoint 97, you can open and edit PowerPoint 2003 presentations, regardless of the language, provided the operating system supports the language of the file.

In localized PowerPoint 95, in addition to an operating system that supports the language of the file, you need the following to open PowerPoint 2003 presentations:

You must have the PowerPoint 97 converter for PowerPoint 95 installed.

or

The file must be in PowerPoint 97-2002 & 95 format.

In localized PowerPoint 4.0, in addition to an operating system that supports the language of the file, you must have the PowerPoint 97 converter for PowerPoint 4.0 installed to open PowerPoint 2003 presentations.

Opening presentations from previous localized versions in PowerPoint 2003

When you open PowerPoint 95 or PowerPoint 4.0 presentations in PowerPoint 2003, PowerPoint 2003 converts the text to Unicode. Because PowerPoint 2000 and PowerPoint 97 both support Unicode, PowerPoint 2003 does not need to convert PowerPoint 97, PowerPoint 2000, or PowerPoint 2002 text.

PowerPoint 2003 can display English and European text in presentations from any language version of PowerPoint 2002, PowerPoint 2000, PowerPoint 97, PowerPoint 95, and PowerPoint 4.0. If PowerPoint 2003 users have enabled the appropriate language in Microsoft Office Language Settings, PowerPoint 2003 can display text in any language provided the operating system supports the language of the file.

Opening PowerPoint 2003 presentations in localized PowerPoint 2003, PowerPoint 2002, PowerPoint 2000, and PowerPoint 97

PowerPoint 2003 files containing Unicode surrogate pairs will in most cases be displayed correctly if you have the appropriate language support installed on your computer. Editing these characters, however, will not work correctly. PowerPoint 2003 files containing Hindi characters will in most cases display individual characters correctly if you have the appropriate language support installed on your computer. Layout for the Hindi text in PowerPoint 2002 might be different than it is in PowerPoint 2003, and editing may not work correctly.

Localized versions of PowerPoint 2000 and PowerPoint 2002 can display PowerPoint 2003 text as shown in the following table.

Opening PowerPoint 2003 presentations in localized PowerPoint 97

Localized PowerPoint 97 can directly open and read PowerPoint 2003 presentations. However, to display Asian or right-to-left (Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi, or Urdu) text that doesn’t match the language version of PowerPoint 97, you must have the appropriate language support installed on your computer.

For Asian text, you can install the Office 97 Asian support files, but for right-to-left text, you must use a compatible right-to-left language version of PowerPoint 97.

The layout for the Hindi text in PowerPoint 97 might be different than it is in PowerPoint 2003, and editing will not work correctly.

Localized versions of PowerPoint 97 can display PowerPoint 2003 text as shown in the following table.

Opening PowerPoint 2003 presentations in localized PowerPoint 95 and PowerPoint 4.0

Depending on the language, localized PowerPoint 95 can open and read PowerPoint 2003 presentations by using the PowerPoint 97 converter for PowerPoint 95 or if the presentations are saved in the PowerPoint 97-2002 & 95 format. Similarly, localized PowerPoint 4.0 can open and read PowerPoint 97, PowerPoint 2000, PowerPoint 2002, and PowerPoint 2003 presentations by using the PowerPoint 97 converter for PowerPoint 4.0, depending on the language.

Localized versions of PowerPoint 95 and PowerPoint 4.0 can display PowerPoint 2003 text as shown in the following table.

Sharing Publisher files across language versions

Microsoft Office Publisher 2003 can open and read publications created in any localized version of Publisher. However, previous localized versions of Publisher cannot open Publisher 2003 publications.

Publisher 2003 supports editing right-to-left text (for languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi, and Urdu) on versions of Windows that support right-to-left display and processing. Some right-to-left text as well as some formatting may not be preserved when saving a publication in an earlier version of Publisher if the version does not support editing right-to-left text.

When you use Publisher 2003 to open documents composed in Publisher 97 or earlier, Publisher converts the text to Unicode. Because Publisher 2003, Publisher 2002, Publisher 2000, and Publisher 98 all support Unicode, Publisher 2003 does not need to convert the text for documents created in those later versions.

Sharing Word documents across language versions

Each new version of Word can successfully open more language versions from older releases of Word. For example, English Word 2000 can open Asian Word 6.0-95 files correctly—something that English Word 97 cannot do. English Word 2003 correctly opens and handles all legacy documents, including Thai Word 6.0-2000 documents, as well as Hindi/Tamil documents created in South Asian Word 2000.

Users of previous versions of Word can also share documents with Word 2003 users. Just as with non-localized versions, localized Word 97 can open and read Word 2003 documents directly, but localized Word 95 or Word 6.0 must have the Word 97-2002 converter installed, or the Word 2003 documents must be saved in Rich Text Format (RTF).

RTF allows you to exchange multilingual documents between Microsoft Office versions. In Office XP (as well as Office 2000 and Office 97), RTF files support Unicode and also allow Word 95 and Word 6.0 to use all Unicode characters that occur in single-byte code pages. As long as the Word 95 or Word 6.0 user does not save the file, the complete Unicode content of the document is preserved when the RTF file is reopened in Word 2003 (as well as in Word 2002, Word 2000, and Word 97).

Opening documents from previous localized versions in Word 2003

When you open Microsoft Word 95 or 6.0 documents in Word 2003, Word converts the text to Unicode. Because Word 2003, Word 2002, Word 2000, and Word 97 all support Unicode, these versions do not need to convert text when documents are opened in another version.

Word 2003 can display English and European-language text in documents from any language version of Word 97, Word 95, and Word 6.0. Word 2003 can display text in any language provided the operating system supports the language of the file, except for Unicode-only languages, such as Hindi, Georgian, and Armenian.

Opening Word 2003 documents in localized Word2000

Word 2000 can directly open and read Word 2003 documents. The file format is essentially unchanged. However, there are a few new features in Word 2003 that are not accessible in Word 2000 (for example, new table styles).

Opening Word 2003 documents in localized Word97

Word 97 can directly open and read Word 2003 documents. However, to display Asian or right-to-left (Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi, or Urdu) text that doesn’t match the language version of Word 97, you must have the appropriate language support installed on your system.

For Asian text, you can install the Office 97 Asian support files, but for right-to-left text, you must use a compatible right-to-left language version of Word 97.

Localized versions of Word 97 can display Word 2003 text as shown in the following table.

Opening Word 2003 documents in localized Word 95 and Word 6.0

Depending on the language, localized Word 95 and Word 6.0 can open and read Word 2003 documents by using the Word 97-2002 converter, or Word 95 and Word 6.0 can open and read Word 2003 documents that are saved in RTF.

Localized versions of Word 95 and Word 6.0 can display Word 2003 text as shown in the following table.

Running macros from previous localized versions of Word

When Word 2003 opens older localized documents, it converts WordBasic to Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and translates the commands to English. Converted macros use the form WordBasic.732. However, strings—including user-created strings and WordBasic strings—are not translated. If a command is a WordBasic command, the language of the arguments accepted by that command can be either English or the localized language.

In Word 2003, Word 2002, Word 2000, and Word 97, you can write macros that work in all language versions of Word 2003, Word 2002, Word 2000, and Word 97. Be sure to use enumerations in your VBA code, and do not refer to objects by the names used in the user interface, because these names are different in each language version.

Resources and related information

The Unicode standard provides unique character values for every language that Office supports and makes it even easier to share multilingual documents. For more information, see “Unicode Support and Multilingual Office Documents” in Chapter 17, “Unicode Support in Office 2003.”

You can use the Microsoft Office Language Settings tool to enable languages for editing. For more information, see “Customizing Language Settings” in Chapter 13, “Preparing for an Office Multilingual Deployment.”

For some languages, you need to have an operating system and fonts that allow you to display and edit the text. For more information, see “Preparing Users’ Computers for Multilingual Capabilities in Office” in Chapter 13, “Preparing for an Office Multilingual Deployment.”