L.F. wrote:
I have a file with words in English with the phonetictranscription but Openoffice or KWord of Debian-Linux doesn't convert some of the symbols:the schwa, the symbol for sh in ship,
<snip>
I have downloaded the tippa fonts and all the others from Debian and they
> are available in my computer.As others have pointed out, a font mismatch is causing the problem. Sadly, fonts in Linux are more complicated than they should be. There are several different font systems used by different applications and they also vary depending which version of Debian you are using. So here's some things to try:
Can you make a new document in OOo or KWord that uses the symbols you need? (Using the fonts you installed - tippa?). If not, then the problem is to do with the font installation on your machine. Try searching the list archives for hints as to how to solve it and failing that post another question with details of your system.
If you can make a new document containing the symbols, then the problem most probably is that your imported document is using another font that is not installed on your system. There are two ways to fix that.
First to try is to select all the text in your document and change it to the font that you just proved works. That's an easy fix if it works.
If that doesn't work, you need to import the Windows font that your document is using. That's more difficult, but it's been discussed before, so search the archive as a first step (try truetype as a keyword).
HTH, Dave