I'm glad you had success, but just to correct one misconception: when you
insert a character from a "symbol" font (Symbol, Wingdings, etc.), it is
inserted as a field (Word used to make this more obvious, as you could
actually toggle the field display and see the field code; you can still
explicitly insert a symbol field using Insert | Field) and thus protected
from font updating. Try it: insert the beta from the Symbol font using
Insert | Symbol (*not* by typing from the keyboard and then applying Symbol
from the font box). You will notice that the font displayed does not change;
if you continue to type, you'll still be typing in, say, TNR. And if you
select all the text and change it to Arial, the beta does not change.

I'm not sure how this would work with Finding/Replacing, however.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Tewodaj" wrote in message
...
Suzanne,

Your last idea using ^c finally worked for me!! It replaces discount with
'beta' without making 'beta' a symbol font that would change the character
when I highlight it and choose, say, Arial. Thanks a million, this was
very
helpful! :-)

Tewodaj

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

I don't know whether I'm just lucky or this is something that's been
improved in Word 2003; all I can say is that it works for me as
described in
that version. What you might try instead is to copy the beta as before,
then
use ^c (Clipboard contents) in the "Replace with" box.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Tewodaj" wrote in message
...
Suzanne,

The problem is *not* that it doesn't display correctly in the dialogue
box.
The problem is that I get the little square in the text itself. Here
are
the
steps I took and the outcome I got:

1. Do Insert-Symbol to get the symbol beta into the text of the
document.
2. Highlight that beta now in the text and copy via Ctrl+C
3. Open the Find and Replace box, go to "Replace with", do Ctrl+V. It
shows
up in the dialogue box as another weird symbol, (but that's not the
problem)
4. Type the word 'discount' in the Find What box. Click on Replace All
5. It replaces all instances of 'discount' with the little square,
instead
of with beta.

I have been to the link that you pointed me to,
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/MacrosVBA/...aceSymbols.htm
but this link seems to suggest as solution to write a macro to solve
the
problem. I am utterly unfamiliar with writing macros and was hoping to
find
another solution in Word 2002.

Thanks for any help on this.
Tewodaj

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

This works for me in Word 2003. If I paste the beta from "(normal
text)"
(glyph 03B2) into the "Replace with" box it actually displays as
beta,
but
even if it displayed as a square, I would still expect it to replace
correctly (symbols are often not displayed correctly in the dialog
itself).
But see http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/MacrosVBA/...aceSymbols.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Tewodaj" wrote in message
...
Hi,
I am using Word 2002 on Windows XP. I have been trying, so far
unsuccessfully, to use the "Find and Replace" tool to replace
greek
symbols
with other greek symbols in my text (e.g. alpha, etc.). I have
managed
to
find symbols by copying and pasting the symbol into the Find What
box.
But
when I try to replace something, say the word "discount factor"
with
the
symbol for 'beta' by pasting the symbol into the Replace box,
"discount
factor" instead gets replaced with a little square box. How can I
address
this problem? Is it at all adressable in Word 2002? A little
warning:
I've
never written word or excel macros so am not familiar with doing
my
own
programming in such applications, so I would much prefer a menu
driven
solution.