Navigation Pane text in Word 2008 is essentially unreadable

[andrew.treloar]

When I view the Navigation Pane in existing documents , the text is
essentially unreadable. Specifically, the letters in each line in the
Navigation Pane are all squished up on top of each other. The only way
to get them to be readable is to redefine the DocumentMap style to
have expanded text by 5 points (!). Even then, it doesn't look like it
is meant to.

I have tried creating new documents, adding a few headings (styled as
Heading 1) and turning the Navigation Pane on. Same problem.

I am running Word 12.1.0 (080409) under OS X 10.5.3 on an Intel
MacBook with 2 GB of RAM.

I've searched this group and other places without success. Any help
gratefully received!

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

My guess is that this is a font problem. What happens if you switch the
Document Map style to a different font? Also, try dumping the Office
font cache--quit all Office apps and move this file to the trash:
[username]/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Office Font Cache (12)

Alternatively, we might have picked up a bug from WinWord--over there
the fix for unreadably tiny text in the Doc Map is to switch to Outline
View and back. Seems this might need to be done for each document once
per session. You might test that one first.

 

[andrew.treloar]

My guess is that this is a font problem. What happens if you switch the
Document Map style to a different font?  Also, try dumping the Office

No change - I've tried both serif, sans-serif and monospace fonts.

font cache--quit all Office apps and move this file to the trash:
[username]/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Office Font Cache (12)

No change. Even tried creating new document after this with a single
heading - same behaviour.

Alternatively, we might have picked up a bug from WinWord--over there
the fix for unreadably tiny text in the Doc Map is to switch to Outline
View and back. Seems this might need to be done for each document once
per session.  You might test that one first.

Also no effect (I had found that tip already). Sorry.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Okay. Returning to basics, then:

Diagnostic tricks to help locate the cause of the problem:

1) hold down shift while launching Word. If the problem disappears, it
was probably due to a corrupt Normal template or preferences.

2) Log out of your user account, then hold down shift while logging back
in. If the problem disappears, it is probably due to some conflict with
the login items/utilities in your user account.

3) create a new user account in OS X and test in that one. If the
problem disappears, then the installation is fine but some user-specific
file has corrupted.


For some reason, I vaguely remember another WinWord Doc Map bug that is
fixed by going to 500% zoom and back. Can you test that, just on spec?

My guess is that this is a font problem. What happens if you switch the
Document Map style to a different font? Also, try dumping the Office

No change - I've tried both serif, sans-serif and monospace fonts.

font cache--quit all Office apps and move this file to the trash:
[username]/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Office Font Cache (12)

No change. Even tried creating new document after this with a single
heading - same behaviour.

Alternatively, we might have picked up a bug from WinWord--over there
the fix for unreadably tiny text in the Doc Map is to switch to Outline
View and back. Seems this might need to be done for each document once
per session. You might test that one first.

Also no effect (I had found that tip already). Sorry.

 

[andrew.treloar]

Okay. Returning to basics, then:

Diagnostic tricks to help locate the cause of the problem:

1) hold down shift while launching Word. If the problem disappears, it
was probably due to a corrupt Normal template or preferences.

No, alas.

2) Log out of your user account, then hold down shift while logging back
in. If the problem disappears, it is probably due to some conflict with
the login items/utilities in your user account.

Also no.

3) create a new user account in OS X and test in that one. If the
problem disappears, then the installation is fine but some user-specific
file has corrupted.

It was this! Many thanks for the tip - I should have thought of this
myself. Now I just have to track down which file.

For some reason, I vaguely remember another WinWord Doc Map bug that is
fixed by going to 500% zoom and back. Can you test that, just on spec?

Nope - that didn't help.

On Jun 6, 3:00 pm, Daiya Mitchell <[email protected]>
wrote:

No change - I've tried both serif, sans-serif and monospace fonts.

font cache--quit all Office apps and move this file to the trash:
[username]/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Office Font Cache (12)

No change. Even tried creating new document after this with a single
heading - same behaviour.

Also no effect (I had found that tip already). Sorry.

 

[andrew.treloar]

Okay. Returning to basics, then:

Diagnostic tricks to help locate the cause of the problem:

1) hold down shift while launching Word. If the problem disappears, it
was probably due to a corrupt Normal template or preferences.

No, alas.

2) Log out of your user account, then hold down shift while logging back
in. If the problem disappears, it is probably due to some conflict with
the login items/utilities in your user account.

Also no.

3) create a new user account in OS X and test in that one. If the
problem disappears, then the installation is fine but some user-specific
file has corrupted.

It was this! Many thanks for the tip - I should have thought of this
myself. Now I just have to track down which file.

For some reason, I vaguely remember another WinWord Doc Map bug that is
fixed by going to 500% zoom and back. Can you test that, just on spec?

Nope - that didn't help.

On Jun 6, 3:00 pm, Daiya Mitchell <[email protected]>
wrote:

No change - I've tried both serif, sans-serif and monospace fonts.

font cache--quit all Office apps and move this file to the trash:
[username]/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Office Font Cache (12)

No change. Even tried creating new document after this with a single
heading - same behaviour.

Also no effect (I had found that tip already). Sorry.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

It was this! Many thanks for the tip - I should have thought of this
myself. Now I just have to track down which file.

Okay, I gotta say, that's not easy. But at least now we know it isn't a
bug in the app itself, or an installation problem.

Actually, first shut down the computer for a few minutes--the OS should
do some basic cleanup on restarting, including with font caches. That's
probably the simplest place to start.

If that doesn't work, then we'll test Office user files--quit all Office
apps. Launch Activity Monitor and also quit the Microsoft Database
Daemon (handles reminders) and the Microsoft AU Daemon (autoupdate).

In [user]/Library/Preferences, find all com.microsoft.* files and a
folder named Microsoft. Move them to the desktop.

In [user]/Library/Application Support, move the Microsoft folder to the
desktop.

in [user]/Documents/, move the Microsoft User Data folder to the desktop.

Don't trash anything, these all hold important data, depending on how
you use Office, but Office will recreate them all not finding them. But
as far as I know, those cover all the places Office stores
user-dependent files (admittedly, it's possible that Office is reacting
to a corruption in a non-Office file).

If the problem is fixed, move one set back, check for problem, quit all,
move next set back, etc.

Daiya

 

[andrew.treloar]

It was this! Many thanks for the tip - I should have thought of this
myself. Now I just have to track down which file.

Okay, I gotta say, that's not easy. But at least now we know it isn't a
bug in the app itself, or an installation problem.

Actually, first shut down the computer for a few minutes--the OS should
do some basic cleanup on restarting, including with font caches. That's
probably the simplest place to start.

If that doesn't work, then we'll test Office user files--quit all Office
apps. Launch Activity Monitor and also quit the Microsoft Database
Daemon (handles reminders) and the Microsoft AU Daemon (autoupdate).

In [user]/Library/Preferences, find all com.microsoft.* files and a
folder named Microsoft. Move them to the desktop.

In [user]/Library/Application Support, move the Microsoft folder to the
desktop.

in [user]/Documents/, move the Microsoft User Data folder to the desktop.

Don't trash anything, these all hold important data, depending on how
you use Office, but Office will recreate them all not finding them. But
as far as I know, those cover all the places Office stores
user-dependent files (admittedly, it's possible that Office is reacting
to a corruption in a non-Office file).

If the problem is fixed, move one set back, check for problem, quit all,
move next set back, etc.

Daiya

Thanks for all your help. The problem turned out to be a corrupted
font.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Thanks for all your help. The problem turned out to be a corrupted
font.

Thanks much for this confirmation--next time we'll know to suggest it.
Was the actual font that the Doc Map uses that was corrupted, or some
other corruption was affecting it?