Ecma 376 section 2.15.3.16 “doNotLeaveBackslashAlone” (page 2180). “This element specifies whether applications should automatically convert the backslash character into the yen character when it is added through user keyboard input”. This makes reference to dynamic behaviors that are out of the scope of the OOXML standard proposal.
No application behaviour should be defined
Part 4 Section 2.15.3.16
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Proposed Disposition of DIS 29500 Comment BR-0009 (Modified: 2007-11-24) Agreed; this should describe this setting in a way that is agnostic of user interaction. The following changes will be made in Part 4, §2.15.3.16: 2.15.3.16 doNotLeaveBackslashAlone ( Convert Display Backslash To As Yen Sign When Entered ) This element specifies whether applications should automatically convert display the backslash character into using the yen character when it is added through user keyboard input displaying the contents of this document . Typically, no automatic display-only conversion of one character to another is performed done when characters are entered by the user . This element, when present with a val attribute value of true (or equivalent), specifies that all entries occurrences of the backslash (\) character (\, U+005C) shall automatically be converted to a displayed using the yen symbol (¥ , U+00A5 ) when the former is entered contents of the document are displayed. This setting does not change the Unicode value of the character stored in the underlying WordprocessingML document. [Rationale: In Japanese code page 932, 0×5c is the yen sign (whereas, in most other code pages, it is the reverse solidusalso known as the backslash). In order to accommodate the user expectation that this code point appear as the yen sign, this setting dictates that the character be remapped, for display only, to the Unicode character ¥, such that the expected appearance is maintained. end rationale] [Example: Consider a WordprocessingML document where the user types containing the following: Hello \ world. The default presentation would have exactly that: Hello \ world. However, if this compatibility setting is turned on: <w:compat> <w:doNotLeaveBackslashAlone /> </w:compat> Then the backslash would be converted displayed as ¥ , resulting in the following output: Hello ¥ world. end example] Similar Comments: DK-0144
Just-fix-it; however, there is an underlying problem here — the proposal is intimately tied to a particular implementation (by MS), and is impossible to implement, or even describe, without reference to it.
I observed it with Korean keyboards also (uses the won character instead of the yen). From what I know, Japanese and Korean Windows are just unable to display the backslash character. Instead they display another character but the ASCII code is exactly the same. I didn’t check how this work in UTF-8 but my feeling is that MS just artificially added a new cultural difference : While under Windosw, people in Asia now use ‘yen’ or ‘won’ when western people use ‘backslash’. This could be a locale setting.