Invisible text in files from old version

[Fiona McKergow]

Version: Word:mac 2008, version 12.2.3 on OSX 10.6.2 on a new Mac
mini.

Problem: Almost all of my old files (created in Word 2004) show
nothing when opened in Word 2008. It appears to be a font problem
because doing Select All and changing the font does bring up the text
(although this is not a great fix because the document may have
contained various fonts and it may mess up the formatting).

The problem fonts appear to be Times New Roman, Arial, and blank (ie
blank where the font name should appear).

Tried so far:

1. Read this group
2. Deleted font caches
3. Ran Compatibility/ Font Subsitutions (result: none found)
4. Validate Fonts in Fontbook, deleted all fonts reported as suspect.

Any clues?

 

[John McGhie]

Go back to FontBook and Find, then Resolve Duplicates.

Then re-boot, to rebuild the font caches.

No guarantees...

Hope this helps

Version: Word:mac 2008, version 12.2.3 on OSX 10.6.2 on a new Mac
mini.

Problem: Almost all of my old files (created in Word 2004) show
nothing when opened in Word 2008. It appears to be a font problem
because doing Select All and changing the font does bring up the text
(although this is not a great fix because the document may have
contained various fonts and it may mess up the formatting).

The problem fonts appear to be Times New Roman, Arial, and blank (ie
blank where the font name should appear).

Tried so far:

1. Read this group
2. Deleted font caches
3. Ran Compatibility/ Font Subsitutions (result: none found)
4. Validate Fonts in Fontbook, deleted all fonts reported as suspect.

Any clues?

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

 

[worldcom69]

I struggled and wasted 1 man week trying to solve this.
Here's a better idea, try to get a refund on your stupid and useless
microsoft software and download open office 3.0 for free. Use it to read and
edit your word 2004 documents.

[you don't have to read my rant]
I can't believe how a company like microsoft can be sooo stupid as to not
make their new software backward compatible for documents created on their
previous software versions.
Maybe they think it will force mac users to buy windows 7 and windows 7
office.
If it weren't for the 1 million row capability of excel 2008, I wouldn't
bother with microsoft office. I should have just bought excel separately.

 

[John McGhie]

Instead of ranting, you could have asked in here...

If you had, we would have told you what to do, within ten minutes.

But if it makes you feel good to spend a week on it, that's OK

(It's not a Microsoft problem: the problem is with the old fonts you used,
which are not compliant with the Microsoft/Apple/Adobe Unicode standard...
If you change the font to Calibri or Cambria, it will all work...)

Cheers

I struggled and wasted 1 man week trying to solve this.
Here's a better idea, try to get a refund on your stupid and useless
microsoft software and download open office 3.0 for free. Use it to read and
edit your word 2004 documents.

[you don't have to read my rant]
I can't believe how a company like microsoft can be sooo stupid as to not
make their new software backward compatible for documents created on their
previous software versions.
Maybe they think it will force mac users to buy windows 7 and windows 7
office.
If it weren't for the 1 million row capability of excel 2008, I wouldn't
bother with microsoft office. I should have just bought excel separately.

Version: Word:mac 2008, version 12.2.3 on OSX 10.6.2 on a new Mac
mini.

Problem: Almost all of my old files (created in Word 2004) show
nothing when opened in Word 2008. It appears to be a font problem
because doing Select All and changing the font does bring up the text
(although this is not a great fix because the document may have
contained various fonts and it may mess up the formatting).

The problem fonts appear to be Times New Roman, Arial, and blank (ie
blank where the font name should appear).

Tried so far:

1. Read this group
2. Deleted font caches
3. Ran Compatibility/ Font Subsitutions (result: none found)
4. Validate Fonts in Fontbook, deleted all fonts reported as suspect.

Any clues?
.

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[IanD]

Well, I've wasted a lot of time too, and my post on the forum elsewhere remains unanswered (under someone else's title 'converting word 2003 PC to Word 2008 for Mac' which is not the right place because mine were created on a mac in the first place. Mea culpa. But this looks like a productive line of queries.

I checked Font Book and many fonts had yellow triangles (nowhere explained). I then did resolve duplicates and rebooted as suggested above and the triangles disappeared. My problem now is that Arial is switched off. It is a problem because over 90% of my old files are Arial and many incoming new ones are too.

I can't believe you are saying we must all use Calibri or Cambria. To be specific, my problem is that my old documents were produced in Word for Mac, and Word for Mac (later version) will not now read them. Any more suggestions? I am tempted by the Open Office suggestion above but will persevere a little longer (although how the ordinary customer is expected to I just don't know. I am at least computer literate).

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Ian:

I never said you "MUST" use Calibri But there are good reasons why you
might want to: it's a better looking font more suited to the way documents
are used these days (it's hinted for on-screen display as well as printing).

Hi Ian:

The issue we usually see is that very old documents are coded in a
non-Unicode font using the MacRoman character set. If it were a Unicode
font, the character set would not matter. If it were in Unicode character
set, the later versions of Arial would work.

It's the combination that gives problems.

Arial was supplied with both OS 10.6.2 and Microsoft Office 2008. Switch
the most recent of those back on.

If you then get a document that won't read correctly, open it in Word, then:

1) Go to Word>Preferences>Compatibility...

2) Click "Font Substitution"

3) If Word can't find some fonts in a document, it will give you a list of
them, and give you the ability to change them.

If it says it can't find "Arial", select that and choose the version of
Arial you have enabled on your system as the substitution.

If it works, make the substitution permanent.

However, I am not sure that is your issue. What happens when you attempt to
open your old documents?

Hope this helps

Well, I've wasted a lot of time too, and my post on the forum elsewhere
remains unanswered (under someone else's title 'converting word 2003 PC to
Word 2008 for Mac' which is not the right place because mine were created on a
mac in the first place. Mea culpa. But this looks like a productive line of
queries.

I checked Font Book and many fonts had yellow triangles (nowhere explained).
I then did resolve duplicates and rebooted as suggested above and the
triangles disappeared. My problem now is that Arial is switched off. It is a
problem because over 90% of my old files are Arial and many incoming new ones
are too.

I can't believe you are saying we must all use Calibri or Cambria. To be
specific, my problem is that my old documents were produced in Word for Mac,
and Word for Mac (later version) will not now read them. Any more
suggestions? I am tempted by the Open Office suggestion above but will
persevere a little longer (although how the ordinary customer is expected to I
just don't know. I am at least computer literate).

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

 

[IanD]

John

Thanks for the response.

If in preferences, compatibility, I click the font substitution button I get a box with the trademark Word "W" and an OK button only. No text [maybe it is in Arial ;-)] Nothing happens when I click OK - the box just disappears.

I set Arial to the latest MS version.

When I subsequently fired up Firefox all text was missing until I went for other text types in Firefox preferences.

Maybe here is another clue: if I 'select all' and switch to Calibri I can see the text again. But if I try to resave in Arial it is not there on the font menu. Nor is Times Roman - as far as I can see all the others are there.

Not all my documents are old - it happened to one (in Arial) newly received by e-mail yesterday. All can be read by a "select all" font change. There is no age discrimination here.

My fonts are held in 3 places as far as I can see: Library fonts (with .ttf file names); Font suitcase under users and Fonts Microsoft. (I've spared you full locations). I can see no pattern between these three locations for those where duplicated fonts were disabled by the earlier operation.

At one point I noticed that the 'All fonts' listing in Font Book showed a different story of which ones were "off" to that in the 'Windows Office Compatible' view.

I think this one is bigger than me and is applications and OS in dispute with each other. Maybe I need OSX 10.6.3 or 4 and maybe an update on 2008 for Mac too?!!

I'm on OSX 10.6.2 and Word 2008 Mac 12.2.4 (100205)

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Ian:

Don't panic: you're correct, it's a system-wide issue, but it's most likely
to be a corrupt Font Cache.

The fact that FireFox is also affected indicates to me that it's the OS X
Font Cache that's munged, not the Microsoft Office one.

Usually, a power-cycle (Shut down until the computer switches off, count to
ten, then switch on again) will fix it: that should trigger the Unix
house-keeping tasks that clean out the font caches.

If a power cycle doesn't fix it, then download a cache cleaner and have at
it:

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/onyx.html

Hope this helps

John

Thanks for the response.

If in preferences, compatibility, I click the font substitution button I get a
box with the trademark Word "W" and an OK button only. No text [maybe it is
in Arial ;-)] Nothing happens when I click OK - the box just disappears.

I set Arial to the latest MS version.

When I subsequently fired up Firefox all text was missing until I went for
other text types in Firefox preferences.

Maybe here is another clue: if I 'select all' and switch to Calibri I can see
the text again. But if I try to resave in Arial it is not there on the font
menu. Nor is Times Roman - as far as I can see all the others are there.

Not all my documents are old - it happened to one (in Arial) newly received by
e-mail yesterday. All can be read by a "select all" font change. There is no
age discrimination here.

My fonts are held in 3 places as far as I can see: Library fonts (with .ttf
file names); Font suitcase under users and Fonts Microsoft. (I've spared you
full locations). I can see no pattern between these three locations for those
where duplicated fonts were disabled by the earlier operation.

At one point I noticed that the 'All fonts' listing in Font Book showed a
different story of which ones were "off" to that in the 'Windows Office
Compatible' view.

I think this one is bigger than me and is applications and OS in dispute with
each other. Maybe I need OSX 10.6.3 or 4 and maybe an update on 2008 for Mac
too?!!

I'm on OSX 10.6.2 and Word 2008 Mac 12.2.4 (100205)

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[IanD]

I downloaded Onyx and cleaned all the font caches (system, user and MS). On restart the same problem exists. All the duplicates showed up again in Font Book (yellow triangles) so I redid resolve duplicates. Still the same: can't see Arial in documents and it is not on the fonts menu.

Hmmm...

I used Apple Migration Assistant to get stuff from my old Power PC G4 on to the Mac Mini (I excluded applications). Maybe it has brought something Snow Leopard doesn't like.
Then again, the forums are full of Snow Leopard font problems, so maybe it is back to waiting for OS updates.

At least my livelihood doesn't depend on it like those poor stranded graphics design guys on other forums. I'm personally holding off installing Adobe CS4 stuff which seems even worse affected until this is resolved - and living off laptops with nice old versions of Word installed. A good job we have a few in the family.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Ian:

Let's try another little test ...

1) Find EVERY font on the system with the string "Arial" anywhere in its
name. I don't care which folder it's in: potentially you will find it in
several folders scattered all over the system, including "Disabled Fonts".

2) Move all of these font files onto a USB data stick.

3) Remove the stick and reboot.

4) Look on the Microsoft Office CD for the Arial font and drag it to the
system font folder.

5) reboot again.

Now: what has changed?

I keep thinking that your issue is that you have several versions of Arial
in play (OS X doesn't much care where they are, it slurps up fonts from
everywhere...) and that some of those fonts are coded in the old Macintosh
way, others in True Type, others in OpenType. Mix in versions with a
Macintosh International character set and some in Unicode character set and
you can understand the system becoming a little perplexed

Migrating prehistoric fonts coded to render with a PowerPC processor onto an
Intel box where all the CPU instructions are flipped end-for-end is going to
be a "high entertainment" proposition.

Hope this helps

I downloaded Onyx and cleaned all the font caches (system, user and MS). On
restart the same problem exists. All the duplicates showed up again in Font
Book (yellow triangles) so I redid resolve duplicates. Still the same: can't
see Arial in documents and it is not on the fonts menu.

Hmmm...

I used Apple Migration Assistant to get stuff from my old Power PC G4 on to
the Mac Mini (I excluded applications). Maybe it has brought something Snow
Leopard doesn't like.
Then again, the forums are full of Snow Leopard font problems, so maybe it is
back to waiting for OS updates.

At least my livelihood doesn't depend on it like those poor stranded graphics
design guys on other forums. I'm personally holding off installing Adobe CS4
stuff which seems even worse affected until this is resolved - and living off
laptops with nice old versions of Word installed. A good job we have a few in
the family.

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[IanD]

Thanks John. Will try, but the rest of my life is winning right now. I have a trip to make so I'll report back later in the week.

 

[John McGhie]

No Probs: I have to get back to some real work also: ping me when you want
to resume battle.

Thanks John. Will try, but the rest of my life is winning right now. I have
a trip to make so I'll report back later in the week.

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]

 

[IanD]

John

After finding print problems as well, and 500 miles at the wheel I got thinking about a reinstall instead! I wiped the disc and reinstalled the OS then added Office and all is now well. All files, photos, tunes etc added manually via backup disc and USB. All now set up and working as far as I can tell at this stage (except Apple Mail - another well known SL problem - but Entourage showed it the door after an easy transfer).

My problem is now 'solved'. Thank you for your help, especially the 'high entertainment' remark. I'll try/hope not to trouble you again.

FYI, the problem was probably solvable as suggested. When I connected my back-up hard drive which also has my Powerbook back-up on it I got messages saying Arial and Times Roman (and one other) fonts found!

Motto for any other readers: using Migration Assistant from Power PC to Intel might damage your spare time.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Ian:

Oh, we hope you will hang around here for a long time.

If you can't ask questions, then at least post some answers

Without questions, we would have no reason to be here. Which would mean we
would be left staring down the bottomless abyss on the Fridge known as the
"Honey: Do!" list. Terrifying thought...

If you hang around here long enough, you too could become an MVP. And that
will finally eradicate the last remnants of any spare time you may still
have...

Cheers

John

After finding print problems as well, and 500 miles at the wheel I got
thinking about a reinstall instead! I wiped the disc and reinstalled the OS
then added Office and all is now well. All files, photos, tunes etc added
manually via backup disc and USB. All now set up and working as far as I can
tell at this stage (except Apple Mail - another well known SL problem - but
Entourage showed it the door after an easy transfer).

My problem is now 'solved'. Thank you for your help, especially the 'high
entertainment' remark. I'll try/hope not to trouble you again.

FYI, the problem was probably solvable as suggested. When I connected my
back-up hard drive which also has my Powerbook back-up on it I got messages
saying Arial and Times Roman (and one other) fonts found!

Motto for any other readers: using Migration Assistant from Power PC to Intel
might damage your spare time.

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410 | mailto:[email protected]