By Kathy Jacobs, Microsoft MVP and webmistress of www.OnPPT.com.

Unicode fonts are fonts developed for use with non-English languages. These fonts have an extended character set and require more space to store each character. They exist to allow you to create presentations that can easily be changed from English to another character set.

Unfortunately, every once in a while, someone will put the Unicode version of a font in a PowerPoint file where they meant to put the regular version. This can cause you great headaches when you try to change the font for that presentation: The Replace Fonts command won't work.

Unicode fonts can't be changed to regular fonts using the Replace Fonts command on the Format menu. Instead, you need to change the PowerPoint file itself to use a different font. There are two ways to do this. You can rebuild each presentation element using a single-byte font, or you can let the PowerPoint HTML converter do most of the work for you.

I find it easiest to let the PowerPoint HTML converter do the work. Here's how to do it: After you have saved your presentation, use Notepad to open the HTML files and find the font name that you want to get rid of (most often it will be Arial Unicode).

To start Notepad, in Microsoft Windows®, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Notepad.

In Notepad, replace the font name with the name of another font on your system. Any font will work, as long as you have it installed and it is not a Unicode font. Make sure that you change the name everywhere it exists. Save the HTML files. Open the HTML file with PowerPoint and re-save it as a presentation. The Unicode font should be gone and you should be able to work with the fonts again.

About the author: Kathy Jacobs' first computer was a build-it-yourself Heathkit she got in high school. (Yes, she did use the soldering iron.) Her book, Kathy Jacobs on PowerPoint, is available through most major booksellers.