XL98: Special or Accented Characters Are Saved Incorrectly in the Lotus File Format

MORE INFORMATION

Extended characters are characters that include accents, circumflexes, cedillas, umlauts, or other diacritical marks. Usually, you can enter an extended character by using a special key combination or by using a function, such as the CHAR function.

Example

To see an example of this problem, follow these steps:

1. In Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition, create a new workbook.
2. Select cell A1.
3. Press the following keys in sequence. Do not press RETURN until you have pressed all of the keys:

   OPTION+` (the key above the TAB key)
   a
   SPACE
   OPTION+`
   e
   SPACE
   OPTION+`
   i
   SPACE
   OPTION+`
   o
   SPACE
   OPTION+`
   u
   RETURN

   The characters "a," "e," "i," "o," and "u" appear in the cell, each with a grave accent.
4. On the File menu, click Save. In the Save File As Type list, click WK4 (1-2-3). Then, click Save.
5. On the File menu, click Close. Click Don't Save.
6. Reopen the file you saved in step 4.

The extended characters have been replaced. The new characters that appear are listed in the following table.

   Old character   New character
   -------------------------------------------------

   grave "a"       "e" with a circumflex
   grave "e"       "A" with a circle (Scandinavian)
   grave "i"       "o" with a circumflex
   grave "o"       "y" with an umlaut
   grave "u"       "O" with a diagonal strikethrough