Times New Roman not kerned

[maurits]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Processor: Intel Whenever I use "Times New Roman" in Word 2008, the text is not kerned, regardless whether I switch kerning on in the Font... settings. If I use the "Times" font, kerning works without problems.

See

http://plasticsfuture.org/pics/timesnewromannokerning.png

for a screenshot. Ironically, the Mac OS X text system has no issues either kerning the fonts - pasted, e.g., into TextEdit, kerning is beautiful with both Times New Roman and Times.

Can other users confirm this issue? Is it a bug in MS office or just a configuration issue on my machine?

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Whenever I use "Times New Roman" in Word 2008, the text is not
kerned, regardless whether I switch kerning on in the Font... settings.
If I use the "Times" font, kerning works without problems.
<br><br>See <br><br><a
href="http://plasticsfuture.org/pics/timesnewromannokerning.png">http://
plasticsfuture.org/pics/timesnewromannokerning.png</a> <br><br>for a
screenshot. Ironically, the Mac OS X text system has no issues either
kerning the fonts - pasted, e.g., into TextEdit, kerning is beautiful
with both Times New Roman and Times. <br><br>Can other users confirm
this issue? Is it a bug in MS office or just a configuration issue on my
machine?

Are you sure you don;t have more than one copy of TNR on your Mac??
If yes, you might try to delete the Office font cache from your
preference folder and relaunch Word.

Corentin

 

[maurits]

Corentin - thanks for the reply!

Yes, I do have two copies of TNR on my system, as has probably every user of Office 2008 (one supplied by Apple in /Library/Fonts, one supplied by Microsoft's Office install in /Library/Fonts/Microsoft/). Normally, this doesn't cause any trouble. Just to make sure, though, I've disabled one of the two copies using FontBook. Also, I've tried the standard troubleshooting step of trashing all prefs (including the font cache) as well as ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/. So far, to no avail.

At your end, is TNR properly kerned?

 

[John McGhie]

Disabling fonts is not working properly in OS 10.6.2.

"REMOVE" from the system the copy you do not want

Cheers

Corentin - thanks for the reply!

Yes, I do have two copies of TNR on my system, as has probably every user of
Office 2008 (one supplied by Apple in /Library/Fonts, one supplied by
Microsoft's Office install in /Library/Fonts/Microsoft/). Normally, this
doesn't cause any trouble. Just to make sure, though, I've disabled one of the
two copies using FontBook. Also, I've tried the standard troubleshooting step
of trashing all prefs (including the font cache) as well as
~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/. So far, to no avail.

At your end, is TNR properly kerned?

--

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
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Disabling fonts is not working properly in OS 10.6.2.

"REMOVE" from the system the copy you do not want

Then reboot and trash the Office font cache.

Corentin

 

[maurits]

OK, this is not Snow Leopard, but 10.5.8 - however, your hint was spot on.

Removing the *system* copy of TNR in /Library/Fonts/ fixed the missing kerning. The copy of TNR under /Library/Fonts/Microsoft/ works fine.

Both are TrueType (TT) fonts. The difference is that Apple's system font is a data-fork TT font; Microsoft delivers an old-style resource-fork TT font.

So it turns out it's not the duplicate fonts that cause the issue, but the font format. There are strong indications that Word 2008 generally doesn't kern data-fork Truetype fonts.

A good example is Perpetua, which is actually supplied by Microsoft's Office install as a data-fork TT font. If you want to reproduce the issue, look at letter pairs such as &quot;VA&quot;, &quot;Vo&quot;, &quot;y.&quot;. Other Mac OS X applications such as TextEdit have no issue with kerning, however Word doesn't kern Perpetua at all, regardless of the kerning setting.

So my conclusion for now is that while my original problem with TNR is solved (thanks, Corentin) by a workaround, there is actually a rather severe bug in Word 2008 that keeps it from kerning data-fork TrueType fonts. Ironically, data-fork TT fonts (with .ttf extension) are Windows-style TT fonts. The impact is high because it affects a wide range of usage scenarios, given that data-fork TT versions for common fonts such as TNR and Arial are provided in every standard install of at least Leopard and higher.

Question to Corentin and others: is my diagnosis correct? If yes, is this a known issue? Is it documented somewhere?

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Hi,

OK, this is not Snow Leopard, but 10.5.8 - however, your hint was spot
on.

Well font conflicts can affect all versions of the System,

Removing the *system* copy of TNR in /Library/Fonts/ fixed the missing
kerning. The copy of TNR under /Library/Fonts/Microsoft/ works fine.

The MS version is indeed more advanced. Apple updated all these fonts in
Snow Leopard so in 10.6, the opposite is usually true (keep the Apple
version, dump the MS one).

Both are TrueType (TT) fonts. The difference is that Apple's system font
is a data-fork TT font; Microsoft delivers an old-style resource-fork TT
font.

So it turns out it's not the duplicate fonts that cause the issue, but
the font format. There are strong indications that Word 2008 generally
doesn't kern data-fork Truetype fonts.

I'm not so sure. The Apple version is far more complete than the MS one
and I believe that's the reason why you are seeing kerning issues.


[...]

Question to Corentin and others: is my diagnosis correct? If yes, is
this a known issue? Is it documented somewhere?

To my knowledge, you would be the first one reporting this.
I haven't checked myself, but I suspect it more related to the character
set provided in the font itself than a format issue.
The fact is that MS provided a very complete font set for certain fonts
like TNF when Apple provided a more rudimentary one.

Again, this has entirely changed in Snow Leopard where many fonts have
been updated by the System.

Corentin

 

[maurits]

Corentin - thanks!

>
> The MS version is indeed more advanced. Apple updated all these fonts in
> Snow Leopard so in 10.6, the opposite is usually true (keep the Apple
> version, dump the MS one).

sorry, but I'm not sure I understand. What specifically do you mean by &quot;more advanced&quot;? If you mean &quot;more recent&quot;, then I don't see how that's correct, at least speaking of 10.5.8.

Some data for 10.5.8:

Apple's TNR (/Library/Fonts/Times New Roman.ttf):
&nbsp;&nbsp;Format: TrueType data fork
&nbsp;&nbsp;Glyphs: 3380
&nbsp;&nbsp;Kerning pairs: plenty, couldn't count
&nbsp;&nbsp;Version: 5.01 (copyright year 2006)
&nbsp;&nbsp;Word kerning works: no

Microsoft's TNR (/Library/Fonts/Microsoft/Times New Roman):
&nbsp;&nbsp;Format: TrueType resource-fork suitcase
&nbsp;&nbsp;Glyphs: 1320
&nbsp;&nbsp;Kerning pairs: plenty, couldn't count
&nbsp;&nbsp;Version: 3.05 (copyright year 1992)
&nbsp;&nbsp;Word kerning works: yes

Note that both fonts have plenty of kerning pairs. Consequently, Apple's text system, e.g. in TextEdit, kerns both versions just fine.

>
> I'm not so sure. The Apple version is far more complete than the MS one
> and I believe that's the reason why you are seeing kerning issues.

what exactly do you mean by &quot;more complete&quot;? More glyphs or kerning pairs? Do you have evidence for your belief that &quot;completeness&quot; is to blame? Do you think &quot;more complete&quot; = Word doesn't kern or vice versa? I have checked multiple fonts now, and the only commonality I could find was that data-fork TT fonts didn't get kerned in Word, regardless of whether they were supplied by Apple or Microsoft. Resource-fork TT fonts always got kerned fine except for Georgia, which doesn't come with kerning pairs to begin with.

[...]

> > Question to Corentin and others: is my diagnosis correct? If yes, is
> > this a known issue? Is it documented somewhere?

>
> To my knowledge, you would be the first one reporting this.
> I haven't checked myself, but I suspect it more related to the character
> set provided in the font itself than a format issue.

The fact is that MS provided a very complete font set for certain fonts
> like TNF when Apple provided a more rudimentary one.

When by &quot;complete font set&quot; you mean number of glyphs, then I think that this statement is not correct for TNR on 10.5.8, see above. However, I don't think the discussion about &quot;completeness&quot; leads us any further. Regardless of the root cause, the fact is that MS Word doesn't kern a large number of important fonts unless you operate on your system font installation. That's a software bug in Word as far as I can tell. For some Microsoft-supplied fonts such as Cambria, the new Office default serif font, or Perpetua, it's even outright impossible to get Word to kern. My suspicion is still that it's connected to the font file format, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

In any case, I'd appreciate if you, Corentin, or some other MVP could try to reproduce the issue and, if positive, possibly liaison with your contacts Microsoft to check whether they're aware of it. Thanks again for your effort.

Best regards,

maurits

 

[maurits]

bumping the thread...

To facilitate testing, I've provided a test document that should make checking for the bug easier.

http://plasticsfuture.org/pics/WordKerningTest.docx

The document comes with some explanations. Note that the font type specifications I use in the document are Apple's (used in the Finder Get Info... window) - they're somewhat confusing:

TrueType font = Windows-style (data-fork) TrueType font with .ttf extension
Font suitcase = older Mac-style TrueType font with the font in the resource fork, no extension
Data fork resource font = .dfont extension, normally TrueType
Opentype font = .otf extension, Postscript or TrueType-style Opentype font

I'd appreciate some feedback. I keep suspecting that Word has a fundamental problem with kerning data-fork TrueType fonts.