Font Issue Resolved!

[Kdesigns]

This is for you Elliott...

I have now successfully pulled all my hair out trying to solve this
nightmare.

After deleting fonts, cleaning caches, reinstalling Office completely,
running all maintenance software, repairing permissions and doing the ³fix
the damned computer² dance ­ all to no avail I went searching the internet
desperate for help.

The following link brought me to Linotype FontExplorer X.

http://word.mvps.org/Mac/CorruptFontErrors.html

This is an excellent font manager much better than the sloth of an app Font
Book. I ran the clean font caches and it has resolved this hellish problem.
I swear I haven¹t had this much trouble with such a minor thing as a font in
I don¹t know how long, leave it to Microsoft to be my downfall.

I encourage you to check this software for your font management. I have
tried them and all this blows them out of the water. To top it all off it is
FREE! I hope it works as well for you as it is/has for me.

I truly thank you all for your help and I hope that this nightmare and its
ending will help someone else.
Kathy

 

[Elliott Roper]

This is for you Elliott...

I have now successfully pulled all my hair out trying to solve this
nightmare.

After deleting fonts, cleaning caches, reinstalling Office completely,
running all maintenance software, repairing permissions and doing the ³fix
the damned computer² dance ­ all to no avail I went searching the internet
desperate for help.

The following link brought me to Linotype FontExplorer X.

http://word.mvps.org/Mac/CorruptFontErrors.html

This is an excellent font manager much better than the sloth of an app Font
Book. I ran the clean font caches and it has resolved this hellish problem.
I swear I haven¹t had this much trouble with such a minor thing as a font in
I don¹t know how long, leave it to Microsoft to be my downfall.

I encourage you to check this software for your font management. I have
tried them and all this blows them out of the water. To top it all off it is
FREE! I hope it works as well for you as it is/has for me.

I truly thank you all for your help and I hope that this nightmare and its
ending will help someone else.
Kathy

Wow! I never would have thought FontExplorer X would have got you back
from the mess you were in, where every application but Word was OK.

I'll give it another go. I tried it once and decided against it on the
grounds that is was meddling in Apple-ness where Font Book already
stood. (I keep out of haxies and launchers and dock enhancers for the
same reason)

It certainly will help others.
In Beth Rosengard's article, in the FontExplorer box, it mentioned
removing fonts from the System Folder to the desktop.

Could you confirm that was a mistake, and that the fonts it removed
were from /Library/Fonts and not /System/Library/Fonts ? I ask because
I want to learn what could have got into the latter. You have to set up
a root user to write stuff into /System/Library/Fonts.

Is it possible that your Frutiger and Futura and Ocean were in both
/Library/Fonts and ~/Library/Fonts at some stage? (where ~ is shorthand
for your user name)?

If you can remember some of the story of how those fonts were installed
and where, it might go toward improving the article.

(Beth is at macWorld today, but I'll bet she'll want me to ask you
those questions)

thanks.

 

[Kdesigns]

I run very little extras if any on my mac. I want to keep it as clean as
possible, this is where I make my living and I can¹t afford to hose it up.

Yep, every app recognized all the fonts EXCEPT Word, go figure.

My fonts are setup in only 2 places
Library>Fonts
User>Library>Fonts

I do have all of my fonts on another hard drive (not my start up disk) as I
have 5 drives internally and externally. All of my apps are also on a
different drive from my start up disk.

As I understand it FontExplorer cleans the font caches and does not remove
anything from the system folder. I have removed caches in the past but I try
to leave that up to software maintenance apps.

Naming convention was not an issue. I went into each of my folders and
physically removed fonts (which Word did not pick up on either). I then
reinstalled the fonts as per Font Book with no success.

I never got any error messages. I tried the fonts in both folders and that
did not work either by installing via Font Book and dragging them into each
folder. I logged out and logged in under a new user, no go. Many restarts
were done also.

What was odd, I added an old true type font and Word recognized that. It was
the new fonts that it would not pick up on. Though Futura has been there
since forever and never moved and Frutiger I just activated.

Kathy

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Elliott,

Thanks for following up on this (and thanks to Kathy too!).

I've just re-read the FontExplorer box. What it says (unless I'm missing
something) is that only fonts not installed by the OS installer will be
moved to the desktop. Since all the fonts in /System/Library/Fonts would
have been installed by the OS installer (barring root user interference),
none of those would have been moved to the desktop. So I think the article
is correct (or *am* I missing something?).

Beth

 

[Elliott Roper]

Hi Elliott,

Thanks for following up on this (and thanks to Kathy too!).

I've just re-read the FontExplorer box. What it says (unless I'm missing
something) is that only fonts not installed by the OS installer will be
moved to the desktop. Since all the fonts in /System/Library/Fonts would
have been installed by the OS installer (barring root user interference),
none of those would have been moved to the desktop. So I think the article
is correct (or *am* I missing something?).

Yep. I took issue with "System Fonts" in the box. They are
/Library/Fonts.
As you say, barring root interference, there is no way
/System/Library/Fonts would have been interfered with.
It is picky I know.

I still intend to have a play with FontExplorer. I have yet to get up
enthusiasm.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

I still intend to have a play with FontExplorer. I have yet to get up
enthusiasm.

I got another FontExplorer testimonial today in private email from someone
who read the website article:

============
Just thought I should say a big thanks for solving the corruption
problem in Word. As you suggested I downloaded the Linotype app and
it worked like a dream.

If you are still on the case it might help to know that I triggered
the problem yesterday when I was doing some spring cleaning of
duplicate files and came across a word file that was labelled 'test'.
When I clicked on it nothing happened apart from the corruption
messages starting to roll. It is apparently in users/pictures/
photolibraryand was created in 2004. Don't know wheter I created it
and it was transferred to this computer when i bought it or whether
it is something that came preloaded for some reason.

One other thing, the first dozen or so fonts escaped the corruption
tag, as well as some of the weirder ones at the end of the list
which I never use and should probably dump anyway.

Anyway, thanks again.

Geoff Andrews
Bath
England
===========

Apparently that app has something going for it! (But the triggering event
was sure strange.)

Beth