Font Transposition in Word and PPT

[stevemcc]

I've got a problem with fonts showing up strangely in Word 2008. If I designate a font in the font selection box of the Menu Bar a check shows up next to that but the font which then is triggered is a different font, usually about six below the one selected. Ditto if I designate a font through the "font" menu. This problem does not occur if I go through the "format" menu font selection process. Same problem occurs in PPT when selecting fonts through the formatting palette. This is occurring on a Macbook using 10.4.11. Any ideas?

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Someone else reported this, but haven't found an answer yet.

What version of OS?

First, I would try cleaning out the font caches--try these--test after
each one to see if the problem is solved.
1. Delete the Office font cache--quit all Office programs and drag this
file to the desktop:
[username]:Libraryreferences:Microsoft:Office 2008:Office Font Cache (12)

2. shut down the computer. Give it a couple minutes. Boot it back up.

3. try a safe boot--look in Mac Help for information on how

 

[Phillip Jones]

To clear up a whole bunch of maladies striking Macs and Mac
applications. for folks that are comfortable using single user mode.
Try the following:

Locate and download a piece of Software called AppleJack.

Once installed restart computer in Single User modes (Command-S)

Once the black screen comes up and the cursor blinks after a bunch of
code shows on the screen

type applejack and hit return.

Follow directions.

among items it does is remove all cache files first system; then it will
ask if there is any user caches you wish to clean. choose yes.

you'll see a list of user caches to work on for example /Users/jacksprat

type that at the cursor or prompt hit return.

If you've never done something like this it may take a while to dump all
Caches.

Its recommended to do each task in order. doing this clear up a lot of
strange problems.

Other items it removes old Virtual memory files, Repairs drives at root
level, fixes permissions and so on. it does a much deeper cleaning and
repair than even disk Utilities.

One affect you will notice if you go through all the tasks is that your
computer will take much longer to load, and move from the blue screen
until all removed items are rebuilt. But afterwards at least for a while
you computer will feel snappier loading and doing task.

Someone else reported this, but haven't found an answer yet.

What version of OS?

First, I would try cleaning out the font caches--try these--test after
each one to see if the problem is solved.
1. Delete the Office font cache--quit all Office programs and drag this
file to the desktop:
[username]:Libraryreferences:Microsoft:Office 2008:Office Font Cache (12)

2. shut down the computer. Give it a couple minutes. Boot it back up.

3. try a safe boot--look in Mac Help for information on how

I've got a problem with fonts showing up strangely in Word 2008. If I
designate a font in the font selection box of the Menu Bar a check
shows up next to that but the font which then is triggered is a
different font, usually about six below the one selected. Ditto if I
designate a font through the "font" menu. This problem does not occur
if I go through the "format" menu font selection process. Same problem
occurs in PPT when selecting fonts through the formatting palette.
This is occurring on a Macbook using 10.4.11. Any ideas?

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<http://www.vpea.org>

 

[stevemcc]

Thanks, Dalya, for the suggestion but that doesn't fix things. I had already tried cleaning the caches before without results and then - why not? - went back in and took your advice about moving the Office font cache so it would recreate it - same problem.

So, if anyone else has a suggestion...?

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Do you have WYSIWYG font menus turned on? What happens if you turn them
off? (Preferences | General)

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Steve:

This is a classic symptom of a font cache problem.

To clear the font cache, you must shut down the computer, then re-start it.
That causes OS X to rebuild its font cache, from which Word will then
rebuild the Microsoft Office Font cache.

Sorry: There are several issues with fonts in Word 2008/OS 10.5.1 at the
moment, and we have no answers for some of them. We're waiting on a patch.

The names of the fonts involved would help a lot ‹ Microsoft has team
researching the issue, and they have asked for the names of the fonts that
are giving problems.

You can send this information directly to the developers by using the "Send
Feedback" item on the Help menu, or post it here and we'll pass it on.

Cheers

Thanks, Dalya, for the suggestion but that doesn't fix things. I had already
tried cleaning the caches before without results and then - why not? - went
back in and took your advice about moving the Office font cache so it would
recreate it - same problem.

So, if anyone else has a suggestion...?

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[stevemcc]

Thanks, again, to Dalya and John, but none of that seems to solve the problem:

1. WYSIWYG, either On or Off, has no effect
2. rebuilding the font caches doesn't work
3. the problem seems to occur on all fonts - or at least the 14 I sampled.

Thanks,

Steve

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Okay, I'm out of ideas (well, actually, you could see if the same
problem happens in a new identity). I've hollered for Help to the MacBU
developers/testers on this thread and the other one--someone should be
along in a bit.

In the meantime, some general information on your font situation would
probably be helpful to them. Are you a graphic designer, with lots and
lots of fonts? Do you use any font management utilities other than the
built-in Font Book? Etc.

 

[Curt Laird]

Hi Steve,
Sorry for the trouble. If it's not too much trouble, I'd like to get some
additional information from you and have you try a few things.

1. Is the offset from the font you selected and the font that is checked
consistent or does it vary?
2. What happens if you choose the first or the last font in the list?
3. Can you tell me approximately how many fonts you have on your system?


Here are some options to try and remedy the and/or workaround the issue:
(I think you've already tried some of these)
1. Try moving or deleting ~/Library/Caches/com.microsoft.browserfont.cache
2. Delete all Office font caches: ~/Library/Preferences/ (Office Font Cache
(10), Office Font Cache (11)) and ~/Library/Preferences/Office2008/Office
Font Cache (12)
3. Run Font Book, select all fonts and choose, File>Validate fonts. Disable
any fonts that have errors or warnings
4. If you have a large number of fonts on your system try disabling some of
them
5. Try disabling certain classes of fonts such as PostScript and OTF


Thanks in advance for you help!


Curt

Okay, I'm out of ideas (well, actually, you could see if the same
problem happens in a new identity). I've hollered for Help to the MacBU
developers/testers on this thread and the other one--someone should be
along in a bit.

In the meantime, some general information on your font situation would
probably be helpful to them. Are you a graphic designer, with lots and
lots of fonts? Do you use any font management utilities other than the
built-in Font Book? Etc.

--
Curt Laird
Software Development Engineer in Test
Microsoft MacBU - Word
(e-mail address removed) (remove ³ONLINE² for all replies)

This posting is provided ³AS IS² with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Curt Laird]

BTW: I use a program called Linotype FontExplorerX to manage my fonts. It
provides support for validating your fonts, finding fonts based on many
different criteria, optimization, and many other things. I highly recommend
it.

It might help with some of my requests below.

Standard disclaimer: MS is not at all affiliated with Linotype and doesn't
officially endorse them. This is my personal recommendation. Use at your own
risk.


Curt

Hi Steve,
Sorry for the trouble. If it's not too much trouble, I'd like to get some
additional information from you and have you try a few things.

1. Is the offset from the font you selected and the font that is checked
consistent or does it vary?
2. What happens if you choose the first or the last font in the list?
3. Can you tell me approximately how many fonts you have on your system?


Here are some options to try and remedy the and/or workaround the issue:
(I think you've already tried some of these)
1. Try moving or deleting ~/Library/Caches/com.microsoft.browserfont.cache
2. Delete all Office font caches: ~/Library/Preferences/ (Office Font Cache
(10), Office Font Cache (11)) and ~/Library/Preferences/Office2008/Office
Font Cache (12)
3. Run Font Book, select all fonts and choose, File>Validate fonts. Disable
any fonts that have errors or warnings
4. If you have a large number of fonts on your system try disabling some of
them
5. Try disabling certain classes of fonts such as PostScript and OTF


Thanks in advance for you help!


Curt

--
Curt Laird
Software Development Engineer in Test
Microsoft MacBU - Word
(e-mail address removed) (remove ³ONLINE² for all replies)

This posting is provided ³AS IS² with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[stevemcc]

Curt and Dalya:

Some responses and further experiments:

1. The offset seems vaguely algorythmic: earlier fonts in the list shift about 2 down but this increases as you go further until about halfway down it's shifting a lot.

2. I've got about 80 fonts installed; checked them with FontBook and they're all working with no problems. They are also working fine in all other non-Microsoft software. This suggests that using other font utilities probably won't help much.

3. Deleted all the caches and other files, shut off the computer, waited, rebooted and opened Word and PPT. No change.

4. Tried Word with an alternate user acount; problem still exists. Deleted the caches in that account to no avail.

5. Got disgusted and used Office Remove to remove Word and then reinstalled it - same problem. This may have something to do with the fact that Office Remove doesn't seem to actually remove most of the operational files, just the "Microsoft Office 2008" folder in Applications (and sorry, but that is really irritatingly useless). I suppose the next step is to find a listing of all the files installed by Microsoft and remove them by hand...

Thanks,

Steve

 

[Curt Laird]

Thanks for the follow-up, Steve.

One other thing that might help us to track this down is to see if it is
caused by one or more particular fonts. Would you mind trying to disable
some of them?

I think the best strategy is to disable certain classes of fonts. Start with
PostScript Type 1, then OTF, then any TTF or AAT fonts. A tedious approach,
I know. But knowing what font(s) are problematic will help us track down the
cause. Any fonts that don¹t ship with Office or the OS are prime suspects.

In the meantime, I have forwarded this latest information onto our Font
developer and I¹ll let you know if he has any suggestions.

Thanks for the patience and for going the extra mile to help figure this
out.



Curt

Curt and Dalya:

Some responses and further experiments:

1. The offset seems vaguely algorythmic: earlier fonts in the list shift about
2 down but this increases as you go further until about halfway down it's
shifting a lot.

2. I've got about 80 fonts installed; checked them with FontBook and they're
all working with no problems. They are also working fine in all other
non-Microsoft software. This suggests that using other font utilities probably
won't help much.

3. Deleted all the caches and other files, shut off the computer, waited,
rebooted and opened Word and PPT. No change.

4. Tried Word with an alternate user acount; problem still exists. Deleted the
caches in that account to no avail.

5. Got disgusted and used Office Remove to remove Word and then reinstalled it
- same problem. This may have something to do with the fact that Office Remove
doesn't seem to actually remove most of the operational files, just the
"Microsoft Office 2008" folder in Applications (and sorry, but that is really
irritatingly useless). I suppose the next step is to find a listing of all the
files installed by Microsoft and remove them by hand...

Thanks,

Steve

--
Curt Laird
Software Development Engineer in Test
Microsoft MacBU - Word
(e-mail address removed) (remove ³ONLINE² for all replies)

This posting is provided ³AS IS² with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[stevemcc]

Curt:

At this point I'll try anything, so I did the following:

1. deactivated Postscript fonts (using FontExplorerX)
2. trashed Office Font Cache (12) so it would rebuild
3. opened Word to discover the following:

• transposition problem still occurs
• Word is displaying fonts that I have been deactivating, including the deactivated Postscript fonts

To add to the confusion I earlier opened Word 2004, which previously worked fine, to use on a document and discovered that it was claiming that all its fonts were nowncorrupt, a view not shared by FontBook or any other application using the fonts. Apparently the problem is spreading...

Steve

 

[stevemcc]

Curt:

And while I'm trying desperate things - what would you think of using FontExplorer to strip the installed fonts down to just the Mac OSX installation set? Before I try that though I'd like to know if there are any fonts that Office requires in order to operate that aren't part of that set.

Steve

 

[stevemcc]

Curt:

And while I'm throwing information your way, here is a list of programs in which this problem does NOT occur:

1. Adobe In Design
2. Keynote
3. Pages
4. Mail
5. Camino, Firefox and Safari

Steve

 

[stevemcc]

Curt, Dalya et al:

Found a fix that seems to work so far:

Remove the folder Microsoft from the Library/Fonts folder (System library, not the User version), reboot and open Word - things are in the right place and function normally.

No idea why this works but I'm momentarily happy and hope this makes some sense to you in your larger effort to figure out what causing all this.

Thanks for the help and solace.

Steve

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Steve:

Well, Daiya and I will be delighted, because you have found a cure that
might work for someone else.

Curt, on the other hand, may not be so happy. He's a very young man ‹ far
too young to lose this much hair just yet... And your news is going to make
his day just that little bit worse

Cheers

Curt, Dalya et al:

Found a fix that seems to work so far:

Remove the folder Microsoft from the Library/Fonts folder (System library, not
the User version), reboot and open Word - things are in the right place and
function normally.

No idea why this works but I'm momentarily happy and hope this makes some
sense to you in your larger effort to figure out what causing all this.

Thanks for the help and solace.

Steve

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Nhulunbuy, Northern Territory, Australia
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[stevemcc]

John, Curt and Dalya:

Well, it doesn't seem to be a permanent fix. Showed up again this morning but just trashing Office Font Cache (12) and restarting killed it again. We'll see what happens from here.

Thanks,

Steve