Hi, By doing this (putting a mail-like > in front of U+2218), you're making vim output U+2218 in bold font (because the mail syntax expresses a color that result into bold font in your vim configuration). Then xterm has to draw a bold U+2218. The problem is that for this you need a bold font that holds U+2218, and it seems your system doesn't have any (just like mine, actually), so xterm can't do much. Samuel