Word changes font on some language specific characters while writing

Question

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

* open blank document in Word (or new e-mail message in Outlook)

* enter "This is a sentence with some non-std characters; æ, å and ü are fun"

* observe text formatting

EXPECTED RESULT

* all entered in default font (Calibri)

ACTUAL RESULT

* all text *but* the special characters are entered in Calibri. The others are formatted with Times New Roman

MORE INFO

Æ, ø and å are normal/frequently-used glyphs in Norwegian and have direct/single-key entry on a Norwegian keyboard layout.

For some strange reason, they suddenly appear in Times New Roman!

This is a relatively recent change in behavior—was definitely not like this from the start (Win10 & Office 2016). It could be (but I won't swear it is) related to Win10 anniversary update.

I'm running Win10-64, English OS language, Norwegian locale & regional settings on a Lenovo X1 Yoga.

Office 2016 (MSO 16.0.7127.1026) 32-bit.

Answer 1

UPDATE: I have a solution (though no explanation) :)

This was caused by some bug in the default Normal.dotm (and NormalEmail.dotm for Outlook). I deleted them, Word created new versions, and the problem is gone!

Found this because some eager digging, trying different templates where I could not reproduce the issue. Even simplified back to creating a new document with the "Single spaced (blank)" template that is almost an exact copy of Normal.dotm (just with less spacing in the "Normal" paragraph style. This lead me to believe the issue was with Normal.dotm. After disabling it (renaming to ".dotm_"), Word re-created the file, and now the problem is gone!

Would someone at Microsoft be interested in looking at my original Normal.dotm to try to debug?

I have kept the file and I'm able to reproduce the issue using that template.

Best regards,

Henrik

Answer 2

The examples you are giving in Outlook rather than Word. Have you posted a question in the Outlook forum? It's just barely possible that someone there would have more ideas.

Also, just to be clear, do you have text selected when you select/change the font?

Answer 3

Slight difference from performation for me; seems "touching" the font resolves the issue.

Test 1

* Compose new message, focus body

* Leave default font to Calibri

* Type abcåa

=> å is inserted with Times New Roman -> NOT EXPECTED

Test 2

* Compose new message, focus body

* Switch font to Arial

* Type abcåa

=> å is inserted with Arial -> EXPECTED

Test 3

* Compose new message, focus body

* "Switch" font to Calibri (eg - no change, but use the dropdown to re-select Calibri - should really not have any effect)

* Type abcåa

=> å is inserted with Calibri -> Awkward that it differs from Test 1, but EXPECTED BEHAVIOR

Again, I feel this is a bug, not a feature request. 

I do not feel it is an acceptable workflow having to set the font each time I compose/respond to a message.

Please advise if I somehow can help debug this further!

[edit]

FWIW; I'm using the default HTML as message type. Also tried a few different characters (Norwegian å, German/Swedish umlauts, Czech ě, etc) - all of them switches to Times New Roman. A small space thereafter switches back to Calibri.

Br,

Henrik

Answer 4

Yes, I have tested several fonts, happens on all of them.

Answer 5

I haven't noticed any problems with Swedish characters å, ä, ö in Office 2016 (or 2013) on Windows 10. Just like you, I expect to make use of such characters without problems.

Just to be clear, have you tested with some other font than Calibri, to rule out that it is a font issue?