Office, Mac, and Font Management

[S_t_e_v_e]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

Hello all.

As I mentioned a moment ago on another post, please bear with me, as the last time I was in front of a Mac it was running system 7.

I recently installed Office for Mac 2008, and I've noticed that it messes around with the Mac font management set-up, as described by Microsoft here (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948736). The installation of Office does not seem to have created any font problems for other applications on the computer, although I have noticed, in the Console application, that Word is the source of a multitude of identical error messages, of the form "cgbitmapcontextgetdata: invalid context". (These error messages are apparently solved by performing an update of Office, although I haven't tried this yet). To put it simply, although Office has not created havoc on the Mac, I just don't see the point of messing around with the way the Mac manages fonts on its own.

I'm thus considering uninstalling Office in order to reinstall it, for apparently it is possible during the Office installation procedure to stop Office from moving fonts around on the system. For example, Office has disabled fonts, moved them from their original location, and created the following folders: "Root_folder/Library/Fonts Disabled" & "Home_folder/Library/Fonts Disabled". I can’t understand why this is necessary, and I think that it may be better to let the Mac do its own job of managing the fonts.

So, here are my two questions:

(1) If I uninstall Office, will it clear up after itself by re-enabling the fonts it disabled and putting them back where they were initially? (I know, this does seem like a lot to ask of it). Or will Office just leave a mess behind, which I’ll be forced to clean up myself? Has anyone noticed font issues due to Office uninstalling improperly?

(2) Are there advantages associated with letting Office take over from the Mac at managing some of the computer's fonts? It seems to me (but remember, the last time I was here was in the days of System 7) that it might be better to let the Mac manage the fonts on its own system, rather than letting Office do the fiddling.

Any help anyone might be willing to provide would be much appreciated.

Stephen

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

(1) If I uninstall Office, will it clear up after itself by re-enabling
the fonts it disabled and putting them back where they were initially?

Office checks for a few fonts it really really needs. If it doesn't find
them, it reinstalls them. That's about all it does. It doesn't really
manage anything else withthe fints and won;t touch any of the other
non-MS fonts.

(2) Are there advantages associated with letting Office take over from
the Mac at managing some of the computer's fonts? It seems to me (but
remember, the last time I was here was in the days of System 7) that it
might be better to let the Mac manage the fonts on its own system,
rather than letting Office do the fiddling.

I don't think you have a choice, but again, it's not really managing
fonts the way you imply here. It's only making sure it has the fonts it
needs enabled.
With Office 2008 now, it's "cleaner" than it used to. The fonts are
grouped in a Microsoft subfolder in /Library/Fonts.
None of the other fonts are ever touched by Office.


Corentin

 

[S_t_e_v_e]

(1) If I uninstall Office, will it clear up after itself by re-enabling

Office checks for a few fonts it really really needs. If it doesn't find
them, it reinstalls them. That's about all it does. It doesn't really
manage anything else withthe fints and won;t touch any of the other
non-MS fonts.


I don't think you have a choice, but again, it's not really managing
fonts the way you imply here. It's only making sure it has the fonts it
needs enabled.
With Office 2008 now, it's "cleaner" than it used to. The fonts are
grouped in a Microsoft subfolder in /Library/Fonts.
None of the other fonts are ever touched by Office.


Corentin

Hello,

And thanks for your reply.

You’re correct that the word “manage” was perhaps not the best of choices when talking about Office’s way of working with fonts on the Mac. My apologies. What I meant was that Office moved things around a little when it installed itself, and this seemed perhaps counter-intuitive.

For example, you say that none of the other fonts are touched by Office. However, on my system Office has created a "Root_folder/Library/Fonts Disabled" directory, and it has placed in this “Fonts Disabled” directory a font called “Brush Script.ttf”. However, Office itself has a version of this font in its own directory: "Root_folder/Library/Microsoft/Fonts". So, to be honest, I’m not quite sure what is going on here.

This is precisely why I’m thinking that it might be wise to follow the advice that Microsoft itself gives, at the bottom of this page (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948736): “you can perform a custom installation of Office 2008 for Mac in which you choose not to install the new fonts”.

Any comments or thoughts about this would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Stephen

 

[Diane Ross]

This is precisely why I¹m thinking that it might be wise to follow the advice
that Microsoft itself gives, at the bottom of this page
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948736): ³you can perform a custom
installation of Office 2008 for Mac in which you choose not to install the new
fonts².

Any comments or thoughts about this would be appreciated.

Choosing not to install could bring on other problems. Others are not having
issues so this indicates to me the problems are on your computer and not in
the fonts.

See this page for details on how fonts are installed and where along with
troubleshooting tips;

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/troubleshoot/bad_font.html>

 

[CyberTaz]

Hello,

And thanks for your reply.

You're correct that the word "manage" was perhaps not the best of choices
when talking about Office's way of working with fonts on the Mac. My
apologies. What I meant was that Office moved things around a little when
it installed itself, and this seemed perhaps counter-intuitive.

For example, you say that none of the other fonts are touched by Office.
However, on my system Office has created a "Root_folder/Library/Fonts
Disabled" directory, and it has placed in this "Fonts Disabled" directory
a font called "Brush Script.ttf". However, Office itself has a version of
this font in its own directory: "Root_folder/Library/Microsoft/Fonts". So,
to be honest, I'm not quite sure what is going on here.

This is precisely why I'm thinking that it might be wise to follow the
advice that Microsoft itself gives, at the bottom of this page
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948736): "you can perform a custom
installation of Office 2008 for Mac in which you choose not to install the
new fonts".

Any comments or thoughts about this would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Stephen

Hi Stephen;

No disrespect intended, but I believe you may be misinterpreting what the
article is saying. The actions taken actually help *avoid* font issues by
relocating only those fonts for which newer, more complete versions are
being installed. Those versions are older, out of date & can eventually
cause problems regardless of whether Office is ever installed, but the
installation is replacing them with newer, more robust versions of the same
font. The fact that you had only the one font relocated should actually be
rather comforting

Also, there's nothing in OS X that "automagically" manages fonts -- if there
were, most of what Office moves wouldn't be there in the first place. The OS
permits anyone & any program to install whatever fonts they want - including
variations on the same ones. OS X does include the Font Book utility
application but it's up to the user to run it as they see fit.
Unfortuantely, most users don't even know of its existance, let alone how to
use it. Second only to graphics I believe fonts & font management is the
least understood aspect of general computer usage. As a result, many users
create their own problems by grabbing fonts from anywhere they can obtain
them [free] in addition to those installed by many of the apps they
buy/try/beg/borrow/steal. Not going off on that tangent, however, the point
is that most of those sources *do not* do the "housekeeping" service that
Office provides, so the system winds up with as many as half a dozen
different variations of the same font. Conflict is inevitable.

Also, the alternative to not install the new fonts is offered as an
*option*, not as advice or recommendation. IMHO, the only people who should
exercise that option are those who are under mandate to use specific
versions of specific fonts & aren't permitted to deviate from them... But
those folks probably don't have the latitude to do their own installations
to begin with.

 

[S_t_e_v_e]

Hi Stephen;

No disrespect intended, but I believe you may be misinterpreting what the
article is saying. The actions taken actually help *avoid* font issues by
relocating only those fonts for which newer, more complete versions are
being installed. Those versions are older, out of date & can eventually
cause problems regardless of whether Office is ever installed, but the
installation is replacing them with newer, more robust versions of the same
font. The fact that you had only the one font relocated should actually be
rather comforting

Also, there's nothing in OS X that "automagically" manages fonts -- if there
were, most of what Office moves wouldn't be there in the first place. The OS
permits anyone & any program to install whatever fonts they want - including
variations on the same ones. OS X does include the Font Book utility
application but it's up to the user to run it as they see fit.
Unfortuantely, most users don't even know of its existance, let alone how to
use it. Second only to graphics I believe fonts & font management is the
least understood aspect of general computer usage. As a result, many users
create their own problems by grabbing fonts from anywhere they can obtain
them [free] in addition to those installed by many of the apps they
buy/try/beg/borrow/steal. Not going off on that tangent, however, the point
is that most of those sources *do not* do the "housekeeping" service that
Office provides, so the system winds up with as many as half a dozen
different variations of the same font. Conflict is inevitable.

Also, the alternative to not install the new fonts is offered as an
*option*, not as advice or recommendation. IMHO, the only people who should
exercise that option are those who are under mandate to use specific
versions of specific fonts & aren't permitted to deviate from them... But
those folks probably don't have the latitude to do their own installations
to begin with.

Hello Bob,

Thanks for your reply, which I’ve only just read, because, oddly enough, I didn’t receive a notification when it was posted.

No disrespect taken at all, Bob. Your comments certainly make things clearer. The link provided by Diane, above, was also helpful -- thank you, Diane. (It’s odd, however, that while the information linked to by Diane appears on pages concerning Entourage, it actually concerns Office more generally).

After updating Office for the first time a few days ago (to version 12.1.7, apparently), the update appears to have solved the error messages in Word I mentioned above, visible in Console, of the form “cgbitmapcontextgetdata: invalid context”. However, similar error messages are still visible when PowerPoint is running. I’ve started a new post for this.

Thanks for your helpful comments.

Stephen

 

[Ernst_Lacher]

Hello all.

As I mentioned a moment ago on another post, please bear with me, as the last time I was in front of a Mac it was running system 7.

I recently installed Office for Mac 2008, and I've noticed that it messes around with the Mac font management set-up, as described by Microsoft here (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/948736). The installation of Office does not seem to have created any font problems for other applications on the computer, although I have noticed, in the Console application, that Word is the source of a multitude of identical error messages, of the form "cgbitmapcontextgetdata: invalid context". (These error messages are apparently solved by performing an update of Office, although I haven't tried this yet). To put it simply, although Office has not created havoc on the Mac, I just don't see the point of messing around with the way the Mac manages fonts on its own.

I'm thus considering uninstalling Office in order to reinstall it, for apparently it is possible during the Office installation procedure to stop Office from moving fonts around on the system. For example, Office has disabled fonts, moved them from their original location, and created the following folders: "Root_folder/Library/Fonts Disabled" & "Home_folder/Library/Fonts Disabled". I can�t understand why this is necessary, and I think that it may be better to let the Mac do its own job of managing the fonts.

So, here are my two questions:

(1) If I uninstall Office, will it clear up after itself by re-enabling the fonts it disabled and putting them back where they were initially? (I know, this does seem like a lot to ask of it). Or will Office just leave a mess behind, which I�ll be forced to clean up myself? Has anyone noticed font issues due to Office uninstalling improperly?

(2) Are there advantages associated with letting Office take over from the Mac at managing some of the computer's fonts? It seems to me (but remember, the last time I was here was in the days of System 7) that it might be better to let the Mac manage the fonts on its own system, rather than letting Office do the fiddling.

Any help anyone might be willing to provide would be much appreciated.

Stephen

Hi
I have similar problems with MS Office 08 and MacOS 10.5.6.
When I choose the font in the pull-down menu of MS Word, Excel or Powerpoint, the application always displays other fonts then chosen.
I have re-installed MS Office several times, also downloaded and installed the update - nothing helped.
I normally work with Quark XPress 8 and Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator where the fonts are never a problem. (Most of my fonts are Postscript)
Can anybody give me a hint how to solve this problem? Thanks!
Ernst