Why is lettering coming up in symbols

You can take a screen shot and upload it here, so that we can see what you see.

Note that if the affected font is Aptos, this may be an issue which has been reported by other people as well. Try downloading the Aptos font and install it locally on your PC (by default, Aptos is a so-called cloud font). See https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=106087 .

Dear @David Hopper,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.

The issue where letters appear as symbols usually occurs due to one of the following:

• A symbol font (e.g., Wingdings) applied by a style or template.
• Encoding mismatch when importing or pasting text.
• Keyboard/input method switching to a symbol layout.

Before giving you the best solution, could you please confirm these questions below to help me diagnose the issue more effectively: 

• Is the issue happening in one specific document or across all Word documents on your device?
• When you check the font in the affected text, does it show a standard font like Calibri/Arial or something unusual like Wingdings or Symbol?
• Which app are you using when this happens (Word Online or Word app)?
• Does it occur in body text, comments, or both?
• Does it happen on other devices?
• If possible, please provide a screenshot to help us diagnose the issue more effectively.   

In the meantime, I recommend you try these steps to check again:

Step 1: When you paste into another app or into Word using Keep Text Only, you’re stripping the problematic formatting, so the underlying Unicode letters render with the destination’s default font.

Step 2: Check the font actually applied

• Select the affected text and look at the Font box.
• If you see Wingdings, Symbol, Webdings, MT Extra, or a missing/custom font name, change it to a standard Unicode font like Calibri, Arial, or Times New Roman.
• If the text immediately becomes readable, the issue was just a symbol font being applied. Missing or non‑Unicode fonts commonly cause this

Step 3: Reset/Change the comment styles in this document

1. Open the Styles pane:

• Home > click the little launcher in the Styles group (or press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S).

2. Reset “Comment Text”

• Find Comment Text (use the search box if needed) > right‑click > Modify
• Set Font to a normal font such as Calibri/Arial/Times New Roman, size 10–11, Color: Automatic.
• Click Format (bottom‑left) > Language > ensure no unusual language/hidden/Asian layout is forcing symbols.
• Tick Only in this document (so you don’t change Normal.dotm) > OK.

3. Update existing comments

• Click inside any comment, press Ctrl+A (select all in that comment), then Ctrl+Space (clear character formatting) and Ctrl+Q (clear paragraph formatting).
• Then click on the Comment Text style that you modified earlier
• This forces the current comment to re‑adopt the style you want. Repeat for others as needed.

Step 4: Rule out add‑ins (if multiple docs start doing this)

• Close Word. Press Win+R, run winword /safe, open the file.
• For reference: Open Office apps in safe mode on a Windows PC

Step 5: Repair Tools

1. Repair Files

• Click File > Open > Browse and then go to the location or folder where the document (Word) is stored. Don't try to open the file from the Recent section as this won't go into the Open dialog box.

• Click the file you want, and then click the arrow next to Open, and click Open and Repair.

• For reference: Open a document after a file corruption error

If this isn’t solving the problem, you might also want to check if any add-ins are conflicting or if you're running an outdated version of Word. You can update Office from the Account section under File.

2. If every document shows the issue or fonts behave inconsistently across apps, you can try repairing it. When you're done, you might need to restart your computer. For more information: Repair an Office application

Step 6: Change the Normal template (Normal.dotm )

• On the File tab, click Open.
• Go to C:\Users_user name_\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates.
• Open the Normal template (Normal.dotm).
• Make any changes that you want to the fonts, margins, spacing, and other settings. You can use the same commands and features that you use to change a document but remember that any changes that you make to Normal.dotm will be applied to documents that you create in the future.
• When you have finished, click the File tab, and then click Save.
• For reference: Change the Normal template (Normal.dotm )

Note: If Normal.dotm is renamed, damaged, or moved, Word automatically creates a new version (which uses the original default settings) the next time that you start Word. The new version will not include any of the customizations that you made to the version that you renamed or moved.

I hope this information is helpful. Please follow these steps and let me know if it works for you. If not, we can work together to resolve this. If I misunderstand anything, please feel free to reach out.

Please understand that our initial response does not always resolve the issue immediately. However, with your help and more detailed information, we can work together to find a solution.

Thank you for your patience and your understanding. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.

I'm looking forward for your reply.

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".   

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

If you're experiencing issues where lettering appears as symbols when copying and pasting, it could be related to character encoding settings. In Microsoft Outlook, for example, strange characters can be displayed in messages due to a beta Windows Unicode UTF-8 support setting that is enabled by the sender. Outlook does not support this setting, which can lead to mixed characters in various languages appearing in the text body.

To resolve this issue, the sender can disable the Unicode UTF-8 support by following these steps:

1. Open the system Settings window.
2. Select Time & Language.
3. Select Language.
4. Under Related settings, select Administrative language settings.
5. In the Language for non-Unicode programs area, select Change system locale.
6. Clear the Beta: Use Unicode for UTF-8 worldwide language support check box.
7. Restart the computer.

This should help prevent the issue from occurring in newly created items.