Fonts unavailable

[Elliott Roper]

You just mentioned something important: You are using OpenType fonts. The web
abounds with issues of OpenType, even between Intel and PPC Macs. Now why the
dialog talks about "conversion" I have no idea, as I can't see why it would
even think any conversion is necessary. Office 2004 SP1 did have some
OpenType fixes, but they were for PowerPoint.

That said, I have to add that my system uses the OpenType Franklin Gothic Std
just fine, both in Word and Pages and exporting from latter. I see all the
variations, they work fine, and they stick when saved and reopened. Similarly
files from my WinXP Word that use OpenType Franklin Gothic Std some over to Mac fine.

An interesting data point. I have been assuming that the errors I see
are fairly universal, or at least some function of the number of OTFs
installed.
I once held an hypothesis that errors occurred after n OTF fonts listed
in order by name, where n was a number I had not yet discovered.

Today however, my Warnock Pro which was once unreachable from Word, is
behaving a bit better. I can see 12 of the 32 variations.

A quick random sample of other OTFs here show most are missing some
weights. That is new behaviour I think. I can't see much pattern to
which ones disappear. e.g. Stempel Schneidler [1] Std shows 7 of the 8.
It leaves out Roman. I ask you?

Trying to work out what Word does with fonts is like picking a scab.
You *know* it will start bleeding again, but you can't leave it alone.

Using Word to get typography right *is* a pointless waste of time.

1. With a name like that, you'd think no piece of software would dare
misbehave.

 

[William_H]

Hi William:

OK, I got an answer from the Dev team
The bug is that Word is confusing the names of the Faces within a font. If
two fonts of the same name have similar faces, only "some" will appear. If
a Font has two faces with similar names, some will not appear.
It's an irritating bug that is on the list to fix.
In the meantime, the work-around is to create Styles containing the correct
font and face. You can do this using either the drop-down font menu on the
formatting toolbar, or by grabbing some text set to the correct font and
modifying a style to "Update to match selection" from the Toolbox.
Once you have specified the font name and face in a style, it will stay
there, and apply the correct font and face, even if the font name foes not
appear in the Font menu.
Hope this helps

Hi John, (and Elliot and Tim)

Although I didn't have much luck with their suggested workaround, i did have notable success once I started looking at the problem through the lens of your comments about font conflict. I can now access F.Gothic Demi (the thorn in my side) having found the Medium weight to be the source of conflict (and forthrightly booted out of Fontbook etc). So, having working weights of Book, Demi and Heavy is something I can live with ... until a genuine solution is provided by MS.

I was interested in Tim's comments about Opentype. I had suspected there might be some joy to be found there. It's just so lame (and prohibitively expensive!) if MS thinks that's a credible solution, just because their software can't resolve such a basic functionality - when the other major Players like Adobe can. Oh well, I guess I'll just go to the back of the (very long) queue ...

Thanks for the leads everyone.

 

[Elliott Roper]

Hi John, (and Elliot and Tim)

Although I didn't have much luck with their suggested workaround, i did have
notable success once I started looking at the problem through the lens of
your comments about font conflict. I can now access F.Gothic Demi (the thorn
in my side) having found the Medium weight to be the source of conflict (and
forthrightly booted out of Fontbook etc). So, having working weights of Book,
Demi and Heavy is something I can live with ... until a genuine solution is
provided by MS.

What a sly idea. It is why I love this group.
Sadly, it did not work here, but it *was* interesting to what else fell
off when I disabled medium.

While testing, it was brought home to me once again what an ancient
crock Word 2004 is. Pages would reflect changes made in Font Book
immediately, even in a document already open on screen. I had to quit
Word and restart it before it would notice anything.
Maybe 2008 is fixed in that regard. I'll test it when it gets
recordable macros back and I can lose that grey pile on the top of
every Window.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi William:

My impression is that "They thought they had fixed this, and have now
discovered that the fix was not quite sufficient."

In other words, this is an irritating oversight, for which a fix to the fix
ought to be forthcoming.

The programming team is pedalling as fast as they can There are other
bugs that will be in the queue before this one. But they'll hammer it
eventually.

Cheers

Hi John, (and Elliot and Tim)

Although I didn't have much luck with their suggested workaround, i did have
notable success once I started looking at the problem through the lens of your
comments about font conflict. I can now access F.Gothic Demi (the thorn in my
side) having found the Medium weight to be the source of conflict (and
forthrightly booted out of Fontbook etc). So, having working weights of Book,
Demi and Heavy is something I can live with ... until a genuine solution is
provided by MS.

I was interested in Tim's comments about Opentype. I had suspected there might
be some joy to be found there. It's just so lame (and prohibitively
expensive!) if MS thinks that's a credible solution, just because their
software can't resolve such a basic functionality - when the other major
Players like Adobe can. Oh well, I guess I'll just go to the back of the (very
long) queue ...

Thanks for the leads everyone.

--
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, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[Curt Laird]

Hi William_H:
Would it be possible for you to zip up your ITC Franklin Gothic font and
send it to me? I would like to try and reproduce this problem. I have the
OTF versions of the font, but need the PS version.

You can contact me directly at the e-mail address below.


Thanks,


Curt

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Intel

Hello,

I have a specific problem with my postscript ITC Franklin Gothic font (but not
restricted to Franklin). The family has weights Book, Demi, Medium and Heavy,
with each offering an italic. In Word 2004 I could access all of them, but in
2008 I can only access, or 'see' the Book and Heavy weights. Trouble is, it's
vital that i can access the Demi.

I have read as much as possible about font issues on this forum but to no
avail... have reinstalled the software with no other programmes open, am
runnning 12.1.1, have rebuilt font caches, deleted any other versons of
Franklin to avoid potential conflicts, understand the font basics of Word
regarding newer versions/disabled folder etc, searched the other 'mini' font
menus, typed the Demi name into the main font menu to try and access it...
it's incredibly perplexing!

Surely I dont have to pay for the family again in a different type format?!

I do use FontBook for font management but ALL my other programs have no
problem seeing the Demi weight.

Unfortunately, switching to another font is not an option as my client is
heavily invested in an established Branding stratedgy that relies on Franklin
Gothic throughout their Word files. And for various reasons I can't go back to
using 2004.

Any 'lights' at the end of the tunnel out there?

Thanks

--
curt:laird
software development engineer in test
microsoft macbu | word:mac
mailto:[email protected] (remove ³ONLINE² to send me mail)

Sent with pride using Entourage 2008!

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

 

[Charles]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Intel

Hello,

I have a specific problem with my postscript ITC Franklin Gothic font (but
not restricted to Franklin). The family has weights Book, Demi, Medium and
Heavy, with each offering an italic. In Word 2004 I could access all of them,
but in 2008 I can only access, or 'see' the Book and Heavy weights. Trouble
is, it's vital that i can access the Demi.

Sorry to be coming into this thread so late but I didn't see it before.

My setup is a little different from yours and I am not sure this will
help you, but in case it does, here are the Postscript ITC Franklin
Gothic fonts available to me in Word 2008 (12.1.1, with OS X 10.5.4,
MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo, Suitcase Fusion12.1.7):

ITC Franklin Gothic Book
ITC Franklin Gothic BookCd
ITC Franklin Gothic BookCp
ITC Franklin Gothic BookCpIt
ITC Franklin Gothic BookIt
ITC Franklin Gothic BookObl
ITC Franklin Gothic Demi
ITC Franklin Gothic DemiCp
ITC Franklin Gothic DemiCpIt
ITC Franklin Gothic DemiObl
ITC Franklin Gothic DemiXCp
ITC Franklin Gothic Heavy
ITC Franklin Gothic HeavyIt
ITC Franklin Gothic HeavyObl
ITC Franklin Gothic Med
ITC Franklin Gothic MedCd
ITC Franklin Gothic MedIt

Charles

 

[William_H]

Hi William_H:

Would it be possible for you to zip up your ITC Franklin Gothic font and
send it to me? I would like to try and reproduce this problem. I have the
OTF versions of the font, but need the PS version.
You can contact me directly at the e-mail address below.
Thanks,
Curt

Hi Curt,
I sent you those earleir this week – if you didn't receive them, just let me know.

 

[William_H]

Sorry to be coming into this thread so late but I didn't see it before.

My setup is a little different from yours and I am not sure this will
help you, but in case it does, here are the Postscript ITC Franklin
Gothic fonts available to me in Word 2008 (12.1.1, with OS X 10.5.4,
MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo, Suitcase Fusion12.1.7):
Charles

Hi Charles,
It's interesting that you are not having a conflict between the Medium and Demi like I am. I've made a note of your list for future reference.

Cheers

 

[Charles]

It's interesting that you are not having a conflict between the Medium and
Demi like I am. I've made a note of your list for future reference.

By the way, you may already have mentioned this, but just to make sure,
I assume you have already tried replacing the problem fonts with a
backup version? Also, are you using any kind of font-verification or
-repair program such as Font Doctor?

Charles

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Charles:

Good points, but I don't think they will address William's problem.

I think we know what it is: it's a name clash among the face variants within
the font itself. There's nothing wrong with the font. Word is just
muddling the variant names up.

When it does this, it thinks it has already loaded all of the faces, and
ignores them.

Cheers

By the way, you may already have mentioned this, but just to make sure,
I assume you have already tried replacing the problem fonts with a
backup version? Also, are you using any kind of font-verification or
-repair program such as Font Doctor?

Charles

--

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, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[Charles]

Good points, but I don't think they will address William's problem.

I think we know what it is: it's a name clash among the face variants within
the font itself. There's nothing wrong with the font. Word is just
muddling the variant names up.

When it does this, it thinks it has already loaded all of the faces, and
ignores them.

I am sure you are right of course--you know much more about these things
than I do.

The reason I mentioned replacing the fonts though was only because with
my setup at least, but running the same fonts, I don't seem to have the
problem.

Charles

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Charles:

It's one of the most irritating bugs we have, because its impact is random
and inconsistent.

It depends utterly on which fonts load, and in which sequence. The name
clashes occur with a long chain of dependencies.

He may find that if he disables all his other fonts, the problem font will
load perfectly! Then it's a matter of bringing the other fonts back in
batches to see which ones cause the conflict.

I was hoping they would get this one fixed soon-ish, but apparently they
won't.

Cheers

I am sure you are right of course--you know much more about these things
than I do.

The reason I mentioned replacing the fonts though was only because with
my setup at least, but running the same fonts, I don't seem to have the
problem.

Charles

--

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, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Nhulunbuy, NT, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[Charles]

It's one of the most irritating bugs we have, because its impact is random
and inconsistent.

It depends utterly on which fonts load, and in which sequence. The name
clashes occur with a long chain of dependencies.

He may find that if he disables all his other fonts, the problem font will
load perfectly! Then it's a matter of bringing the other fonts back in
batches to see which ones cause the conflict.

I was hoping they would get this one fixed soon-ish, but apparently they
won't.

Thanks for the added info.

Charles