J
John McGhie [MVP -- Word and Word Mac]
Re: Font Problems?..In MSWordHi Scott:
Nope, logs won't help. They know what the bug is. They just haven't fixed
it...
And a font manager will only make the problem worse (by stressing the font
handling mechanism).
It sounds like you have a worse case than most, though. Let me ask: how did
you get the Office software onto that box? If you did anything other than a
"clean install", do one of those now: let's face it, there's nothing else
you can do. I have zero expectation that this will fix the problem, but
I've been wrong before on this bug
-- follow this process exactly --
1) Get rid of all fonts from the machine that were not provided by either
Apple or Microsoft . I don't care what kind they are, if they did not come
with OS X or Microsoft Office, YOU can't have them in ANY of your font
folders If they're on the machine at all, the system will find them and
bring them into play. After getting rid of the suspect fonts, you should
reboot the machine (power-off cold start...) to force rebuilding of the
various font caches.
2) Run the Remove Office tool from the Office CD (It's not the software
that's the problem, it's the preference files created after installation
that we want to get out: chances are you have an entry in one of those
preference files pointing at an entity that is absent or unfound on your
machine).
3) Run Disk Utility and Repair Permissions
4) Put in the Office CD and run the Installer (no drag-and-drop, PLEASE. I
want to ensure that every file lands in its expected position)
5) Start and quit each application (to initialise the preference files)
6) Repair permissions again (to make sure that the updates will apply
properly)
7) Apply each of the Office updates in the order that they are numbered.
Don't attempt the "Next" until you get a successful installation of each).
This process should dramatically lessen the incidence of the bug (although
the bug remains, it's less likely to be triggered). And what I say is a
wild guess, predicated on the fact that so far, I have not seen this bug
reported with fonts by Apple or Microsoft.
It's OK to leave your styles and templates and such formatted in the suspect
fonts. When you move the document to your wife's machine for printing, the
correct fonts will appear. On your machine, Word will substitute the
closest equivalent font. And it shouldn't crash... Much...
Sorry: Best I can suggest.
Cheers
--
John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer, Microsoft MVP (Word, Word for Mac)
Sydney, Australia +61 (0)4 1209 1410
Hi John,
Thanks for the response. If there is any log I can provide, please let me
know.
I've purging my font caches a couple of times, but I am frankly afraid to
launch Word. It is too much of an impact on my productivity to have all my
open apps crash practically simultaneously (when it has happened, I usually
restart just to be safe).
Aside from the required TrueType fonts Office needs, all of my fonts are
either Adobe Type 1 or OpenType. This is just the latest in a long string of
Word-related font issues I've experienced; and with my abrupt move to Intel,
I am hesitant about adding a font manager into the mix (for now). In my
previous experiences, Excel and PowerPoint do not seem to be affected or
themselves impact OS X or other applications.
--
Regards
Scott Melendez
On 08-17-06 15:17, in article C10B2834.43807%[email protected], "John McGhie
Hi Scott:
The fact that a critical piece of Apple system software crashes and takes
out all running apps (including Word) is indeed disturbing This would
seem to indicate that Steve Jobs is now correct: he has indeed at last
produced a "better" Windows than Windows...
Neither Word nor any other application should be able to crash the ATSUI
sub-system. But if it does crash, that means "the thing that draws all of
the text for printing and screen display" has gone away, which will indeed
result in an outburst of ill-health system-wide.
You're quite correct: only MacIntels do this: the PowerPC is immune to this
bug.
None of which is getting us any further forward. I cannot upgrade to the
MacIntel until the bug is fixed and Apple won't even admit that they have
the bug, which means they probably don't intend to fix it ever. It appears
that they intend to quietly replace the module in the next OS version they
release.
Sad...
Nope, logs won't help. They know what the bug is. They just haven't fixed
it...
And a font manager will only make the problem worse (by stressing the font
handling mechanism).
It sounds like you have a worse case than most, though. Let me ask: how did
you get the Office software onto that box? If you did anything other than a
"clean install", do one of those now: let's face it, there's nothing else
you can do. I have zero expectation that this will fix the problem, but
I've been wrong before on this bug
-- follow this process exactly --
1) Get rid of all fonts from the machine that were not provided by either
Apple or Microsoft . I don't care what kind they are, if they did not come
with OS X or Microsoft Office, YOU can't have them in ANY of your font
folders
If they're on the machine at all, the system will find them andbring them into play. After getting rid of the suspect fonts, you should
reboot the machine (power-off cold start...) to force rebuilding of the
various font caches.
2) Run the Remove Office tool from the Office CD (It's not the software
that's the problem, it's the preference files created after installation
that we want to get out: chances are you have an entry in one of those
preference files pointing at an entity that is absent or unfound on your
machine).
3) Run Disk Utility and Repair Permissions
4) Put in the Office CD and run the Installer (no drag-and-drop, PLEASE. I
want to ensure that every file lands in its expected position)
5) Start and quit each application (to initialise the preference files)
6) Repair permissions again (to make sure that the updates will apply
properly)
7) Apply each of the Office updates in the order that they are numbered.
Don't attempt the "Next" until you get a successful installation of each).
This process should dramatically lessen the incidence of the bug (although
the bug remains, it's less likely to be triggered). And what I say is a
wild guess, predicated on the fact that so far, I have not seen this bug
reported with fonts by Apple or Microsoft.
It's OK to leave your styles and templates and such formatted in the suspect
fonts. When you move the document to your wife's machine for printing, the
correct fonts will appear. On your machine, Word will substitute the
closest equivalent font. And it shouldn't crash... Much...
Sorry: Best I can suggest.
Cheers
--
John McGhie <[email protected]>
Consultant Technical Writer, Microsoft MVP (Word, Word for Mac)
Sydney, Australia +61 (0)4 1209 1410
Hi John,
Thanks for the response. If there is any log I can provide, please let me
know.
I've purging my font caches a couple of times, but I am frankly afraid to
launch Word. It is too much of an impact on my productivity to have all my
open apps crash practically simultaneously (when it has happened, I usually
restart just to be safe).
Aside from the required TrueType fonts Office needs, all of my fonts are
either Adobe Type 1 or OpenType. This is just the latest in a long string of
Word-related font issues I've experienced; and with my abrupt move to Intel,
I am hesitant about adding a font manager into the mix (for now). In my
previous experiences, Excel and PowerPoint do not seem to be affected or
themselves impact OS X or other applications.
--
Regards
Scott Melendez
On 08-17-06 15:17, in article C10B2834.43807%[email protected], "John McGhie
Hi Scott:
The fact that a critical piece of Apple system software crashes and takes
out all running apps (including Word) is indeed disturbing
This wouldseem to indicate that Steve Jobs is now correct: he has indeed at last
produced a "better" Windows than Windows...
Neither Word nor any other application should be able to crash the ATSUI
sub-system. But if it does crash, that means "the thing that draws all of
the text for printing and screen display" has gone away, which will indeed
result in an outburst of ill-health system-wide.
You're quite correct: only MacIntels do this: the PowerPC is immune to this
bug.
None of which is getting us any further forward. I cannot upgrade to the
MacIntel until the bug is fixed and Apple won't even admit that they have
the bug, which means they probably don't intend to fix it ever. It appears
that they intend to quietly replace the module in the next OS version they
release.
Sad...