MACOS X TIGER ~~ FINALLY GOT WORD TO WORK WITHOUT FONT PROBLEMS :))) !!!!!

[sumayyaessack]

Hi

i recently changed over to TIGER and had soooo many font problems, like
a recurring "this font is corrupt message"" ""please remove this
font""' ect ect ect....

i dont know if what i did was good or bad....but i trashed the ""font
cache tool"" and have no problems ever since...everything works
beautifullyyyyyyyyy *******

 

[sumayyaessack]

hi there

word is working perfectly now.............i mainly use it to view word
atachments and not really for creating documents..as i am a mac
user...and have appleworks .freeehand ect ect
............but.....tell me....if word was already telling me my fonts
were corrupt..when they were not...am i to beleive it when it tells me
that again????

no more word problems )))))))))))*******

 

[Michael]

IMPORTANT NEW INFORMATION

There could be undesirable consequences from deleting your Font Cache Tool!

First of all, it cannot be replaced except by reinstalling Office.

Secondly, it controls WYSIWYG display. As long as you don't delete your
current Office Font Cache, you'll still see WYSIWYG. But if you ever have
to delete the Office Font Cache, your WYSIWYG display will be gone.

Thirdly, the Font Cache Tool is also responsible for checking for corrupt
fonts. If you remove it, sure, you won't see any more errors about bad
fonts; but you also could have bad fonts which will sooner or later screw
things up and you will get no notification about them.

So, deleting your Font Cache Tool may *appear* to help things but in the
long run, you may not like the other consequences of this action and will
have to reinstall Office in order to get it back.

This very problem just happened to me. Mac Tiger G5, just installed
Office2004 (Word and Excel v. 11)

I got the "---- is a corrupt font" message. It listed every font I have
active in alphabetical order.

So, I did this:

1. Turned off all fonts in FontBook
2. Could open Word
3. Reignited some fonts.
4. Not active in Word, so I quite Word.
5. Restarged Word. More corrupt font messages.
6. Downloaded and installed v. 11.1 and v. 11.1.1 updates.
7. Now I can open Word without any error message, BUT there are only
six or eight fonts (from the A part of the list) shown in the Font
list.

This did NOT happen with our previous X-rated Word. Now what's
happening. It's very frustrating. I have spent this entire day futzing
around with my fonts, FontBook, Word, support downloads, etc.

If I purge teh Font Cache, will that clear up things.
Thank yew.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

You can also try trashing the following system font caches, but if you
actually *deleted* (as opposed to disabling) fonts which are needed by the
system, then you've got another problem. Anyway, you can try these and
start with the first two before you go any further. Log out and restart
after each deletion or group of deletions.

Com.apple.ATS.plist ~/Library/Prefs
Com.apple.ATS /Library/Caches
FontTablesAnnex /System/Library/Caches
All other files whose names include .ATS or font found in
/System/Library/Caches, especially com.apple.ATS.System.fcache and
com.apple.ATSServer.FODB_System

Actually you need to move all these files to the trash (DON'T empty it
or the system could re-create some of the cache files with the
corruption still in it) and restart. Than you can empty the trash.

Corentin

 

[Michael]

That did it. Thanks, Beth and Corentin.

Michael Brady

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Actually you need to move all these files to the trash (DON'T empty it
or the system could re-create some of the cache files with the
corruption still in it) and restart. Than you can empty the trash.

I don't entirely understand this, Corentin. If you trash a file, how can it
be recreated with a corruption that went out with the trash? It seems more
logical to empty the trash before restarting. I'm confused.

Beth

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Michael,

I'm glad it got fixed but what exactly did it? Was it the Office Font Cache
or one of the system caches?

Beth

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I don't entirely understand this, Corentin. If you trash a file, how can it
be recreated with a corruption that went out with the trash? It seems more
logical to empty the trash before restarting. I'm confused.

Beth

When you move the file to the trash (or any otherlocation) the System
tracks it as long as it is open and still reads and writes to it.
If you empty the trash (which actually will require that you do it at a
point when the system is not accessing the file) then the System can't
find it anymore, and re-creates a new one at the default location and
uses it from then on. If the corruption is loaded in memory, the new
file is written with the corruption in it. The result being that you
beleive the problem is gone, but the System recreated a new cache file
already and it still has the corruption.

If you move the file to the trash without emptying it, the system keeps
on using it. When you reboot, the system shuts off and "frees" the file.
At boot, the system has forgotten that the file had been moved, looks in
the default location and doesn't see a cache file so it re-creates a
brand new (and clean) one.

You can actually sometimes seethe new cache file appearing in the
default location if you trash the file before the reboot. That's also
the reason why most utilities that take care of cleaning up these cache
for you strongly advise you to reboot immidiately after the cleanup (to
allow the system to free the file and create a new clean one).


Corentin

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

That did it. Thanks, Beth and Corentin.

Michael Brady

I'm glad it worked Michael

Corentin

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Okay, but ....

When you move the file to the trash (or any otherlocation) the System
tracks it as long as it is open and still reads and writes to it.
If you empty the trash (which actually will require that you do it at a
point when the system is not accessing the file) then the System can't
find it anymore, and re-creates a new one at the default location and
uses it from then on. If the corruption is loaded in memory, the new
file is written with the corruption in it. The result being that you
beleive the problem is gone, but the System recreated a new cache file
already and it still has the corruption.

Why would the corruption be loaded in memory!? That doesn't make sense to
me. The corruption is in a cache file; you trash the cache file and empty
the trash; you reboot and a new cache file is created. How can the
corruption possibly be "in memory"?

If you move the file to the trash without emptying it, the system keeps
on using it. When you reboot, the system shuts off and "frees" the file.
At boot, the system has forgotten that the file had been moved, looks in
the default location and doesn't see a cache file so it re-creates a
brand new (and clean) one.

I still don't see why *this* new cache file would be any "cleaner" than the
one in the first scenario.

You can actually sometimes seethe new cache file appearing in the
default location if you trash the file before the reboot.

Even if that's the case, why wouldn't the new cache file in this case be
clean? It was created independently from the one you trashed. The act of
trashing the old file prompted the creation of the new one. They're not the
same file.

Beth


That's also

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Why would the corruption be loaded in memory!? That doesn't make sense to
me. The corruption is in a cache file; you trash the cache file and empty
the trash; you reboot and a new cache file is created. How can the
corruption possibly be "in memory"?

Well that's because of the way the cache is used by the system.
The purpose here is basically to scan all the fonts and store the
information somewhere so that you don't have to re-scsan all the time
(it's too time consuming). The system can just check whether the fonts
have changed and if they haven't, it uses the infomration in the cache
without rescanning all the information for the available fonts, but this
is a two-way system and sometimes, the system writes back information to
the cache file. I have no idea how much RAM the information needs, but
quite a big chunk of this information can go into RAM. When the RAM
needs to be purged (or the data is not useful anymore), it can be
written back to the disk.
If you trash the cache file at this point, you have no warranty that the
system won't have corrupted data loaded in memory and will not write it
back in a new cache file for future use (perpetuating the corruption).

I still don't see why *this* new cache file would be any "cleaner" than the
one in the first scenario.

If you move the cache file to the trash and reboot, the system purges
its memory and everything that needs to be written to the cache still
goes to the same file (which is in the trash at this point).
Once the system starts again, it doesn't have the previous pointers
telling it to look for the cache in the file that's in the trash and
only looks in the default location. Since there is no file there at this
point, it creates a new one,starting the cache from scratch.
The old cache is not in use at all at this point and you can trash it.

Even if that's the case, why wouldn't the new cache file in this case be
clean? It was created independently from the one you trashed. The act of
trashing the old file prompted the creation of the new one. They're not the
same file.

It's not clean because the infromation loaded by the system is
corrupted. It's therefore corrupted information that's written back to
the new cache file.

If you reboot, there is nothing loaded in the system. Since there is
nothing in hte default location either, the system is forced to
re-create the information for the cache from scratch providing you with
a nice new clean cache file.



(I hope I'm not saying anything stupid ;-) this is only a summary of
what I read a long long long time ago about these processes. I might be
wrong, but the information is substantiated by personal esperience. I;ve
had Font corruption and I was trashing (and emptying the trash) the
cache without ever getting rid of the problem. One day I learnt about
the way it worked and the procedure I was supposed to follow to get rid
of these issues... and it solved the problem on my Mac).


Corentin

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Thanks for the very detailed explanation, Corentin! It does seem to make
sense now.

Beth

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Thanks for the very detailed explanation, Corentin! It does seem to make
sense now.

I'm glad it does Beth

Corentin

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

That is a REALLY important and obscure piece of information.

I hope Beth will find the time to add that full explanation to our website
(he muttered guiltily...)

Cheers

When you move the file to the trash (or any otherlocation) the System
tracks it as long as it is open and still reads and writes to it.
If you empty the trash (which actually will require that you do it at a
point when the system is not accessing the file) then the System can't
find it anymore, and re-creates a new one at the default location and
uses it from then on. If the corruption is loaded in memory, the new
file is written with the corruption in it. The result being that you
beleive the problem is gone, but the System recreated a new cache file
already and it still has the corruption.

If you move the file to the trash without emptying it, the system keeps
on using it. When you reboot, the system shuts off and "frees" the file.
At boot, the system has forgotten that the file had been moved, looks in
the default location and doesn't see a cache file so it re-creates a
brand new (and clean) one.

You can actually sometimes seethe new cache file appearing in the
default location if you trash the file before the reboot. That's also
the reason why most utilities that take care of cleaning up these cache
for you strongly advise you to reboot immidiately after the cleanup (to
allow the system to free the file and create a new clean one).


Corentin

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi John & Corentin,

Well, this brings up another question.

Corentin, I was under the impression that your explanation applied to system
files only (since that's where this whole discussion began). Does it also
apply to Office (or other application) files?

Or is the difference that, for instance, if you wanted to trash your Word
prefs, you would (or should) quit Word first, before dragging the prefs file
to the trash and emptying it. But, of course, you can't quit the system
first; it has to be open in order to perform the action. I guess that's the
difference. If I'm right, then your explanation would not change the way we
deal with Office files, only system files.

Is that correct or not?

Thanks,
Beth

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Hi John & Corentin,

Hi All

Well, this brings up another question.

Corentin, I was under the impression that your explanation applied to system
files only (since that's where this whole discussion began). Does it also
apply to Office (or other application) files?

Well it could apply to any app actually: if and app using the file is
still running and you try to trash the file, you might be heading for
trouble. That's why it's always recommended to trash the file only after
all related apps are quit (or after making them "release" the file in
the case of the System).
For instance, I'd quit Word before trying to trash its files.

Or is the difference that, for instance, if you wanted to trash your Word
prefs, you would (or should) quit Word first, before dragging the prefs file
to the trash and emptying it.
Absolutely.

But, of course, you can't quit the system
first; it has to be open in order to perform the action. I guess that's the
difference. If I'm right, then your explanation would not change the way we
deal with Office files, only system files.

Is that correct or not?

Sure. Be careful about daemons though. Office has a background deamon
running when the Notifications are enabled. Some files (prefs or the
MUD) might require that the Daemon is off before you start playing with
them.

Corentin

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I hope Beth will find the time to add that full explanation to our website
(he muttered guiltily...)

You can get away with just posting the recommended procedure: move the
files to the trash, reboot and only then Empty the trash.

Anyway, personnally, I really think it's worth investing in a Utility
like Cocktail or TinkerTool System to take care of that for you: These
apps will get all the right files and perform some other maintenance
operations for you. Run everything you need and reboot and that's it

Corentin

Cocktail ($14.95):
http://www.macosxcocktail.com/index.html

TinkerTool System (7 euros):
http://www.bresink.de/osx/TinkerToolSys.html

Onyx is free, but I didn't see anything about font/system cache there...
maybe I missed it.
http://www.titanium.free.fr/english.html

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Corentin,

Well it could apply to any app actually: if and app using the file is
still running and you try to trash the file, you might be heading for
trouble. That's why it's always recommended to trash the file only after
all related apps are quit (or after making them "release" the file in
the case of the System).
For instance, I'd quit Word before trying to trash its files.

Since I posted my last message here, I've done some experimenting and I'm
now quite positive that the only relevant action when deleting an Office
file (and, I suspect, *any* application file) is whether or not you have
quit out of the Office app, not whether or not or when you have emptied the
trash that contains the old file.

The evidence:

1. Normal Template: If you haven't quit out of Word and you try to trash
Normal, you get a dialog telling you the file is in use and you can't trash
it.

If you *have* quit out of Word, it makes no difference whether or not you
empty the trash of the old Normal before reopening Word: Either way you
will get a new Normal.

2. Word Preferences file: If you haven't quit out of Word and you try to
trash your Word prefs file, you will *not* get a dialog telling you the file
is in use and the trash *will* get emptied. The result, however, is that
your old prefs remain in memory and are retained even after you quit and
relaunch Word. But note this: You get the exact same result if you haven't
quit out of Word and you *don't* empty the trash.

If you *have* quit out of Word, it makes no difference whether or not you
empty the trash of the old prefs file before reopening Word: Either way you
will get a new prefs file.

So the difference (at least on the Mac) between trashing prefs, caches,
etc., that belong to Word and trashing such files that belong to the System
is this: You *must* quit Word before taking action. On the other hand, you
*can't* quit the System before taking action; it has to be active or you
can't do anything.

In other words, if you quit Word, trash a file, empty the trash, you're fine
since nothing needs to be in the System's memory with Word quit. That's not
true with the System. As long as it's booted, it must maintain various
files. If you try to trash one of those files (like a system cache file)
with the System open, the trash may appear to empty, but the file will
remain in memory. When you reboot, a "new" cache file, based on the old
(presumably corrupt) file will appear. So it's not really new (and it's
still corrupt).

However, if you trash the system file but *don't* empty the trash, the
System doesn't need to maintain the file in memory since it can refer to the
one that's sitting in the trash. The System is perfectly happy. When you
shut down and then reboot, the System checks the folder where the file
should be, doesn't see one (because it's still in the trash), and creates a
new "clean" file.

This is exactly what Corentin said in the first place. The only difference
is that it does not apply to (I suspect *all*) application files (and
definitely not to Word).

Summary:

Where Word is concerned, quit the application before trashing files; it
doesn't matter whether or not you empty the trash before relaunching Word.

Where the System is concerned, do *not* empty the trash before shutting down
and rebooting.


--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
(If using Safari, hit Refresh once or twice ­ or use another browser.)
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[ityoung]

Ever since the release of Tiger (v10.4.x) many, many users have been
complaining about the message indicating that Microsoft programs Word &
Excel think that certain fonts are corrupt. The suggested fixes involve
"safe starts", deleting "Office Font Cache (11)", or cleaning the
caches with OnyX, Tiger Cache Cleaner, or Cocktail. These fixes are,
however, temporary and the problem inevitably returns.

And it is a nuisance!

Instead of providing symptomatic relief, when is the true cause of the
problem going to be identified by Apple and/or Microsoft. I can imagine
that there is a significant amount of denial in both their houses but
that does not help me (and many others).

Who is going to solve this problem and when?

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Good questions, aren't they?

The only answer you will get in here is "Those who know are not allowed to
tell us, and those who tell us, don't know."

Not that it does us the slightest bit of good, but I think the cause is now
known. I don't know what it is, but it's something along the lines of:
"Apple made a change Microsoft was not expecting, so now the Microsoft
Unicode-compatible applications cannot cope with the information that
sometimes gets sent."

So: You're right, there's a lot of ducking and weaving and finger-pointing.
Apple would say "Read the manual -- it's in there." Microsoft would say
"Would have been nice to have the manual before you shipped the OS."

Me: I say "This problem has been around as long as computers have. It's
called "Level-up incompatibility" and the responsibility for a fix gets a
bit blurred. Technically, Apple should have announced a restriction with
Tiger. In practice, Apple probably did not know about the issue until it
hit, because they would not have had precise details of how Microsoft
applications handle font information. Microsoft, on the other hand, could
be expected to have discovered it and issued a warning. Unfortunately, they
*didn't* discover it. They tested with pre-release versions of Tiger (some
of the people on this list helped with that) but none of us found the issue
until customers reported problems. Now we have found it, and it's not an
easy one to fix. Both companies are still working on it. I have no idea
which one of them will release a fix, or when."

Now: Doesn't that help? Not...

Cheers

Ever since the release of Tiger (v10.4.x) many, many users have been
complaining about the message indicating that Microsoft programs Word &
Excel think that certain fonts are corrupt. The suggested fixes involve
"safe starts", deleting "Office Font Cache (11)", or cleaning the
caches with OnyX, Tiger Cache Cleaner, or Cocktail. These fixes are,
however, temporary and the problem inevitably returns.

And it is a nuisance!

Instead of providing symptomatic relief, when is the true cause of the
problem going to be identified by Apple and/or Microsoft. I can imagine
that there is a significant amount of denial in both their houses but
that does not help me (and many others).

Who is going to solve this problem and when?

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410