Bad Font Detected

[syounker]

I just upgraded to Tiger and now Word and Office are reporting that I
have a bad font during the "Optimizing Font Menu Performance" routine.
The message actually comes from the operating system and the system
disables the font. If I reinstall the font it works fine in all other
applications until I run an Office application. This is a font I've
used for 10 year (its a custom in-house font) from OS 7.1 through
10.3.9. Anyone have a similar issue?

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Sounds similar to this known issue:

<http://groups-beta.google.com/group/microsoft.public.mac.office.word/browse
_frm/thread/5995f5f9080d2fb6/6242a24baf098c5d?q=corrupted+font&rnum=1#6242a2
4baf098c5d>

subject: Re: Corrupted Font warnings a-plenty, on the MacWord group:
Archived on google.
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/microsoft.public.mac.office.word

 

[syounker]

Neither of these issues address the problem. It's specific to MS
Office's interaction with fonts in Tiger. After I install the font I
can run ANY OTHER application and the font works fine. As soon as I
launch an Office application and it "Optimizes Font Menu Performance" I
get the message Bad Font Detected. I think Office is reporting to the
OS that there is something wrong with the font. The font is then
disabled. I have 21 new PowerMacs that I can't install until I resolve
this issue.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

You didn't say if you tried deleting the Font Cache or not:
~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office Font Cache (10). Word must be quit
when you do this so it can rebuild the cache when you relaunch.

If that doesn't work, try reinstalling this custom font of yours from a
different source (someone else's computer?). I can't think of why a font
that worked fine in 10.3.9 should present problems in 10.4 unless it somehow
corrupted (in Word 2004's understanding of that term, which seems to be much
pickier than in earlier versions).

If I were in your position (with 21 machines waiting), I'd also try removing
and reinstalling Office and all its updates. (Why? For the very technical
reason that "you just never know" .) You must run the Remove Office tool
first. Full procedure here:
<http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/RemoveReinstall.htm>
(If using Safari, hit Refresh once or twice; better yet, use another
browser.)

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
(If using Safari, hit Refresh once or twice ­ or use another browser.)
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[syounker]

I've used Fontographer, TypeTool and FontLab to regenerate a clean copy
of the font in both Type1 and OpenType formats. This did not help the
problem. I then found a file called FontCacheTool in buried in the MS
Office Support tools. If I remove this file then Word does not run the
'Optimizing Font Menu Performance' routine when starting. Since this
does not run, it does not disable the font. Then if I try to use the
font in Word it will then disable the font. We do not need to use this
particular font in Word so I'm going to proceed like this. But, I do
believe there is a problem with the FontCacheTool detecting a problem
that doesn't exist in the font. All other non Microsoft applicaitons
on my computer can use the font fine and I've used several font
scanning utilities that detect problem fonts and my font checks out
fine in all of them.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

You STILL didn't say if you tried trashing the Font Cache file, which is not
the same as the FontCacheTool. You should not have to get rid of this tool
and there could be consequences down the road if you do; in fact I wouldn't
be surprised if preventing Word from 'optimizing font menu performance'
resulted in eventual corruption of the font menu and/or font files.

If trashing the Font Cache file doesn't work, send me a copy of the font. I
don't have Tiger installed, but I know people who do. I'd like to find out
if they see the same behavior that you're seeing. Use the email address I
posted from and be sure the title of this post is in the subject line of
your email or it will get lost in my junk mail folder.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
(If using Safari, hit Refresh once or twice ­ or use another browser.)
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[Priyanka Singhal [MSFT]]

Hi,
Another thing you can try is look for duplicates and disable them using font
book .
could you send this font to me too ?

Thanks,
Priyanka

 

[syounker]

I did delete the Font Cache file. I also went through the Remove
Office process. Remove Office, repair permission, reinstall office,
repair permission, run each office app, repair permissions, etc...

I'll send you a copy of the font.

Shan

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Shan,

I got the following back from Microsoft:

--------------------------------------------------
I still don't have a workaround. I don't know if this issue is same as
the other font problems that we are seeing on the newsgroup with upgrade
to tiger. I have attached herewith the error message I get with this
user font. As this is not an error in Office, we cannot do much about
it. I wanted to request that if you see this problem again on the
newsgroup ask them to send a screen shot of the message , so that we can
find out if they too are seeing the same problem or not.
---------------------------------------------------

I don't want to attach anything here but the error message starts:

Bad Font Detected
A problem has been detected with the font ...........

So, please follow up and send a screen shot of the error message to me and
I'll pass it on.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
(If using Safari, hit Refresh once or twice ­ or use another browser.)
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>