I am confused how MS Word 2003 manages special characters. On my system (XP
Pro)a document that contains smart quotes and en and em dashes looks OK. On
my client's system they appear -- and print -- as Greek characters or
others. I have loaded my client's printer drivers and the documents still
look OK on my system. Sometimes, when I create PDF files, the same
characters are substituted for the special characters.

Admittedly, I tend to create my documents in WordPerfect 12 and then import
the document into MS Word for final formatting -- page breaks, headers,
footers, page numbers, and table of contents, etc. WordPerfect can reproduce
these special characters a number of ways -- either as smart quotes as I
type -- like MS Word -- or inserted as a typographic symbols or as an ASCII
code using the current font in use. I tend for the first two options.

MS Word allows for short cut key combinations (For example, the em dash is a
special character: Alt+Ctrl+Num -  or the shortcut key Alt+0151 (the same
code under WP12)). Alternatively, it can be inserted using the symbol font.

Given the similarities, why do special characters display differently on
different computers? WP12's default code page is 1252 Windows US Standard. I
expect it is the same for Word 2003.

I work better in WP12 and use MS Word only for certain clients. I find the
latter a bit quirky. I consider myself an advanced user of both programs.

Thoughts and opinions?