Possible fix for the Questionmarks in Japanese Release.

[raphipod]

We are still looking for fixes with the ???s.
I found out that VB5/6 uses Unicode instead of default UTF-8 text encoding used in newer Operating systems, hence the questionmarks. Maybe @xraymemory can change the text encoding from Unicode to UTF-8 somehow?

(Maybe) a very helpful link: https://di-mgt.com.au/howto-convert-vba-unicode-to-utf8.html

[xraymemory]

Unfortunately this solution requires one to modify the source and recompile which we cannot do as of yet. However, I'm thinking that it's possibly an issue related to a missing font, specifically the variant of MS GOTHIC that its looking for. I highly recommend downloading VBReFormer and exploring the form data and exe for yourself!

[raphipod]

Ok, thanks for the clarification! I'm going to try it and see what I can get.

[Feldherren]

A possible workaround (not a solution, as it necessitates OS configuration changes or a third-party program) is to run the application in a Japanese locale; when you do that (and have the font), the question marks render properly.

Accomplishing this requires changing the OS system locale in Windows 10, or using a program like Locale Emulator or Applocale to fake the correct locale for BookStory specifically.

So, not really a solution, but something plenty of other fan-translation projects have had to rely on.