DOCBOOK-APPS: typographical characters & encoding

My PDF output contains incorrect characters for typographical symbols like 
the bullet, em-dash, and double quotes.

The workflow runs from MS Word to sdocbook via the YAWC add-in, then to FO 
via Norm's stylesheets and to PDF via either the PassiveTeX package or the 
newly released IBM / alphawoks package called XSL FO Composer.

I'm thinking there is a glitch with the encoding somewhere in the chain. 
I'm suspecting the Word/YAWC (dis)connection but looking at the XML source 
in XMetaL, I don't see anything that I would recognize as a problem.

Can you please give me some pointers on where to start looking for the 
problem resolution?

Thanks for your help.                  ...edN