Font problems between Word and MAC

When I
open those files in my MAC, its all weird characters.

There could be two issues:

If the text is Unicode, then MS Word for Mac can't handle it (MS Mac products can't do any Unicode Indic script yet). Try opening the doc with TextEdit instead.

If the text is not Unicode, but TSCII encoding, then you must install the exact font that produced it on your Mac. OS X only includes Unicode fonts, not old legacy encodings.

All Tamil produced on OS X with the Inamathi font that comes with it will be Unicode and should be readable in Word 2004 OK.

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=1200527#1200527

I have tried saving my file in MS word on Windows PC
as RTF and tried opening it in TextEdit and i get the
same problems in MAC.

Then I think the file is in the old TSCII encoding. Take a copy of the font which is on your PC and put it in Home/Library/Fonts on your Mac. Then select this font in whatever program you are using to read the file.

Or in MS Word on your PC, you could save it as plain text in Unicode UTF-8. Then TextEdit should be able to read it.

If no luck, feel free to send me a copy of the file (tom at bluesky dot org).

Edit: never mind, I reread your post. Obviously the problem is reading on Word for the Mac!

P.S. Also note that the name Mac is not an acronym for the computer. See this user tip:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=503342&tstart=0

Thank you for the support. As suggested by you I
copied the font on to the folder and used NeoOffice
Writer to open the document and I could see it
without any problems. Infact, I could PDF it and
send it to my Windows PC and works great.

Happy to hear that worked!

If possible I would recommend you shift the encoding of any Tamil docs like this which you have to work with to Unicode UTF-8. That way anyone will be able to read them without installing a non-standard TSCII font on their system. I think normal Windows systems have only the Unicode Latha font for Tamil.

PS Although you used NeoOffice, I suspect that Mac Word can probably also read Tamil if that TSCII font is installed and selected (it's the standard Unicode which MS stuff can't handle).