Asterisks of pairwise comparisons disappear from graphs copied from Prism to Microsoft Word on macOS after exporting to PDF or opening on Windows

The problem

While using Microsoft Word on macOS, there have been a number of scenarios identified in which asterisks of pairwise comparisons on Prism graphs included in the Word document disappear. The first scenario is when the Word document is exported to PDF. Additionally, asterisks may also disappear when opening the Word document (created/saved on macOS) in Microsoft Word for Windows.

Why does this happen?

Prism graphs appear to correctly retain the asterisks of included pairwise comparisons when added to Microsoft Word or Microsoft PowerPoint. The issue causing these asterisks to disappear seems to occur as a result of Microsoft Word or Microsoft PowerPoint incorrectly exporting these symbols. This issue may be related to how Microsoft Office encodes fonts (including those used for the asterisks) when exporting to PDF or when rendering in Microsoft Word for Windows.

This does not appear to be a problem with the way Prism prepares or presents these asterisks on these graphs.

What can I do? How can I avoid this problem?

You may attempt using one of the following workarounds:

• Use the "File > Save As..." command to save the document as a PDF. After selecting "PDF" as the file format, choose the "Best for printing" option in the dialog
  
• Rather than using the export dialog, use the Print command, and then choose to "Save as PDF..."
  
• Choose to use a different font for the asterisks within Prism. You may need to try various different fonts to find one that works
  
• Copy the Prism graph to Microsoft Word or PowerPoint in raster format. To do this:
  • Take a screenshot of the graph (using cmd-shift-4) and paste it into Word
  • Export the graph from Prism as a PNG and import it into Word