TTF Font issue in Word 2004

[AndrewC]

Hi Wise People,

I can't for the life of me, get Word 2004 to recognize the unicode font
Apple Symbols Regular (Note, NOT Symbol -- which it finds fine). I've
only got one copy, I've tried it in every font menu. I've trashed my MS
Office font cache each time & rebooted. But it just hates that font.
I've had related font issues with other fonts with the extension ttf

Any hints?

(On a vaguely related note -- I don't know if this is a Microsoft issue
or not, but is there going to be a reasonable complete (or at least
MORE complete) unicode version of Times New Roman or Times coming out
soon?)

Andrew

 

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

Hi Andrew:

(On a vaguely related note -- I don't know if this is a Microsoft issue
or not, but is there going to be a reasonable complete (or at least
MORE complete) unicode version of Times New Roman or Times coming out
soon?)

The version of Times New Roman that ships with Microsoft Office is as
complete as it gets. I believe it has an identical character set to the PC
version.

There was an attempt to bring Arial Unicode MS to the Mac. That has a
complete set of Unicode 3.2 symbols: at the expense of being a 22 MB font
file. But there were problems getting it ported to the Mac. I don't know
if it will happen in the future.

As is usual in this game, those who know are not allowed to tell us, and
those who tell us don't know.

But if you have access to a PC, the PC version of Arial Unicode MS will
install and work OK in Word 2004.

Cheers

--

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

 

[Jeff Wiseman]

Hi Wise People,

I can't for the life of me, get Word 2004 to recognize the unicode font
Apple Symbols Regular (Note, NOT Symbol -- which it finds fine). I've
only got one copy, I've tried it in every font menu. I've trashed my MS
Office font cache each time & rebooted. But it just hates that font.
I've had related font issues with other fonts with the extension ttf

Any hints?

Are you running mac OS X? When some Microsoft .ttf fonts are
handled by the Font Book utility, your fonts environment can get
fouled up. Although I've not seen it, there might be a similar
problem with other .ttf fonts that I'm not aware of.

It you are running OS X, try opening the Font Book utility and
looking to see if the font in question is even visible in Font
Book's font list. If you can't see it there even though it is
installed in one of the formal Font folders on the system, then
the XML file maintaining the fonts environment for your account
is likely corrupted and NONE of your applications will be able to
see it.

If this is the case, try deleting the com.apple.ATS.plist file in
the ~/Library/Preferences folder for your account then log out
and back in. Open Font Book utility and see if it has reappeared.
If the font wasn't visible before and now is, then it will likely
become visible to the Office applications now as well.

Note that the deletion of the com.apple.ATS.plist file results in
any disabled fonts on your system becoming Enabled so you'll have
to go through and disable them all again.

 

[matt neuburg]

I can't for the life of me, get Word 2004 to recognize the unicode font
This is a well-known issue. The curious thing is that only some users
see the problem. But many definitely do. m.

 

[Jeff Wiseman]

This is a well-known issue. The curious thing is that only some users
see the problem. But many definitely do. m.

I found it relatively easy to reproduce on a consistent basis.
From an admin type account with the Office 2004 set of fonts
installed (say, in the /Library/Fonts folder). Open the Font Book
utility, go to one of the 8 non-suitcase inclosed .ttf fonts
(e.g., batang.ttf), select it, and disable it. Normally when a
font is disabled it turns grey to show this fact. However, when
one of these non-suitcase fonts is disabled, it also DISAPPEARS
from the Font Book utility making it appear as though it had
actually been removed from the Fonts folder where it was located
even though it has not been touched (i.e., it's still there). The
only way to get it back visible is to delete that ATS preferences
file which, of course, re-enables the font.

Also, I saw a situation where if these 8 fonts were installed in
both the /Library/Fonts and ~/Library/Fonts folders and were
being displayed as duplicates in the Font Book utility, all you
had to do was click on one of them and they BOTH would disappear
(i.e., even without trying to disable one). Again, you could only
get them back by deleting the ATS preference file.

The fonts that seemed to behave badly with Font Book this way was
the Microsoft fonts:

Batang.ttf
Gulim.ttf
MS Gothic.ttf
MS Mincho.ttf
MS PGothic.ttf
MS PMincho.ttf
PMingLiU.ttf
SimSun.ttf

Have you heard of any others that seem to exacerbate Font Book's
bad behaviour like these?

 

[matt neuburg]

I found it relatively easy to reproduce on a consistent basis.
From an admin type account with the Office 2004 set of fonts
installed (say, in the /Library/Fonts folder). Open the Font Book
utility, go to one of the 8 non-suitcase inclosed .ttf fonts
(e.g., batang.ttf), select it, and disable it

This has nothing to do with Font Book. It's a question of what shows up
in Word's own font menus and dialogs. m.

 

[Jeff Wiseman]

This has nothing to do with Font Book. It's a question of what shows up
in Word's own font menus and dialogs. m.

Exactly. In some situations, Font Book can screw up what shows up
in Word's own font menus and dialogs.

The OP didn't specify the details on what "can't...get Word...to
recognize the...font..." meant but I assumed that they might have
the font installed and not be able to see it in Word.

When it came to the 8 Microsoft .ttf fonts I mentioned in my
previous post, this exact type of situation occurs if you try
manipulating those fonts with the Font Book utility. It can make
them disappear and even though the fonts are installed in the
correct place, Word cannot see them. I.e., they don't show up in
Word's menus and can't be added either since Word (or any other
application for that matter) can no longer see them anywhere on
the system.

If this is the situation, restoring the ATS environment by
deleting the preferences file can fix it.

 

[AndrewC]

Yeah, I actually can see the font fine in Fontbook, it's only Office
that seems to have the problem. Although it appears to be the case with
all those non-suitcase embedded .ttf fonts. It also shows up fine in
applications like TextEdit.

....

I'm baffled.

 

[Jeff Wiseman]

Yeah, I actually can see the font fine in Fontbook, it's only Office
that seems to have the problem. Although it appears to be the case with
all those non-suitcase embedded .ttf fonts. It also shows up fine in
applications like TextEdit.

Interesting. I checked on my system (a G5 iMac running OS 10.3.6)
and I have the same exact situation. It shows up in the Apple
applications and the Font Book but not in the Office
applications' font menus.

I don't know anything about that font. It looks like it could be
a system specific font but on my system it came already installed
in the /Library/Fonts folder and not the /System/Library/Fonts
folder where a system specific font would likely be located.

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

from what?

 

[Jeff Wiseman]

from what?

From my Reply-to address (i.e., the one automatically inserted
into the "To:" field when you do a Reply To Sender from your browser)

 

[Beth Rosengard]

From my Reply-to address (i.e., the one automatically inserted
into the "To:" field when you do a Reply To Sender from your browser)

I just did a Reply To Sender to see what would happen and the address
inserted by Entourage was <[email protected]>.

Beth

 

[Jeff Wiseman]

I just did a Reply To Sender to see what would happen and the address
inserted by Entourage was <[email protected]>.

Beth

This discussion is off topic from the thread (and newsgroup) but
may be significant so I wanted to address the issue briefly.
E-mail me directly if you wanted to go into further depth (w i s
e m a n j a @earthlink.net).

What you are seeing should not be happening.

I went back and looked at the source on Paul's message and it
appears that he also is using the same version of Entourage as
you are (version 11.1.0.040913 - do a "View message source" type
function on his posting to see this). Entourage does not appear
to be behaving the way it is supposed to.

If you look at my postings, you should see not only a "From:"
field value (i.e., the [email protected] value), but you should
also see a "Reply-to:" field value as well (a field value of
(e-mail address removed)). I know that they are
both there because I can go into this thread and view them myself.

Since the dawn of e-mail, when you do a reply to sender, the
"To:" field of the newly composed message would be automatically
populated from the original message's "From:" field *UNLESS* the
optional "Reply-to:" field was also present in the original
message. In that case the e-mail client is supposed to use the
value in the "Reply-to:" field instead of the "From:" field.

If Entourage is not doing this, it is probably broken. It may
have some strange capability to override this algorithm that for
some bizarre reason has been set up as a default by Microsoft
(yea, like *THAT* wouldn't ever happen...), but I can't imagine why.

I'm not fully versed in the standards that govern e-mail and
usenet posting protocols, but I've been using various e-mail
clients now for nearly 30 years and I've never heard of a client
intentionally ignoring or stipping the Reply-to field.

I don't have Entourage installed so I can't verify this.
Microsoft's attitude of integrating all of their e-mail, usenet,
address books, calendars, etc., etc. into large monolithic
application environments with every feature in the system (along
with its associated bugs) has been the primary source of the bulk
of all trojans, worms, and viruses on the network. I have
absolutly no faith in those products and I have to have rather
extreme needs to justify putting them on my computers.

Anyway, this may or may not be a known issue with Entourage, but
if Entourage's use is widespread on this group, then I may need
to change my anti-spam tactics when I post here.

 

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

Hi Jeff:

In Entourage, it depends how you pick up the message. I guess most of us
operate directly from the Message List in three-pane view. If you do that,
and hit "Reply To", Entourage uses the "From" field.

If you Open the message into single document view, then use Reply to All,
Entourage uses the Reply To field. If you use "Reply to Sender", Entourage
uses the "From" field.

I agree, it's not the historically correct way of doing it, but it's
probably a design decision based on what users would "expect".

Cheers

This discussion is off topic from the thread (and newsgroup) but
may be significant so I wanted to address the issue briefly.
E-mail me directly if you wanted to go into further depth (w i s
e m a n j a @earthlink.net).

What you are seeing should not be happening.

I went back and looked at the source on Paul's message and it
appears that he also is using the same version of Entourage as
you are (version 11.1.0.040913 - do a "View message source" type
function on his posting to see this). Entourage does not appear
to be behaving the way it is supposed to.

If you look at my postings, you should see not only a "From:"
field value (i.e., the [email protected] value), but you should
also see a "Reply-to:" field value as well (a field value of
(e-mail address removed)). I know that they are
both there because I can go into this thread and view them myself.

Since the dawn of e-mail, when you do a reply to sender, the
"To:" field of the newly composed message would be automatically
populated from the original message's "From:" field *UNLESS* the
optional "Reply-to:" field was also present in the original
message. In that case the e-mail client is supposed to use the
value in the "Reply-to:" field instead of the "From:" field.

If Entourage is not doing this, it is probably broken. It may
have some strange capability to override this algorithm that for
some bizarre reason has been set up as a default by Microsoft
(yea, like *THAT* wouldn't ever happen...), but I can't imagine why.

I'm not fully versed in the standards that govern e-mail and
usenet posting protocols, but I've been using various e-mail
clients now for nearly 30 years and I've never heard of a client
intentionally ignoring or stipping the Reply-to field.

I don't have Entourage installed so I can't verify this.
Microsoft's attitude of integrating all of their e-mail, usenet,
address books, calendars, etc., etc. into large monolithic
application environments with every feature in the system (along
with its associated bugs) has been the primary source of the bulk
of all trojans, worms, and viruses on the network. I have
absolutly no faith in those products and I have to have rather
extreme needs to justify putting them on my computers.

Anyway, this may or may not be a known issue with Entourage, but
if Entourage's use is widespread on this group, then I may need
to change my anti-spam tactics when I post here.

--

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

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

Good catch, John. I never noticed that.

Actually, it makes no difference which view (Preview Pane, i.e. 3-pane view,
or separate message window). The difference is whether you click "Reply to
All" (or same in Message menu) - meaning Reply to Newsgroup and also CC
sender - or do Reply to Sender in Message menu - meaning email only. In the
first case, the cc email does go to the Reply-To header entry. In the second
case, it goes to the From.

That's a BUG. I'll report it, but MacBU is known for not being too active to
fix news-only bugs since news is a very low "convenience" priority.

In email, clicking Reply will send the reply to the Reply-To header entry,
as it should. It's a mistake that Reply to Sender in news (a special
feature, to be sure, but still...) does not work the same way, even though
Reply to All does. I'm sure this was an oversight, not intentional.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

From: "John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.mac.office.word
Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 23:40:59 +1100
Subject: Re: OT: Possible Entourage e-mail client problem

Hi Jeff:

In Entourage, it depends how you pick up the message. I guess most of us
operate directly from the Message List in three-pane view. If you do that,
and hit "Reply To", Entourage uses the "From" field.

If you Open the message into single document view, then use Reply to All,
Entourage uses the Reply To field. If you use "Reply to Sender", Entourage
uses the "From" field.

I agree, it's not the historically correct way of doing it, but it's
probably a design decision based on what users would "expect".

Cheers

This discussion is off topic from the thread (and newsgroup) but
may be significant so I wanted to address the issue briefly.
E-mail me directly if you wanted to go into further depth (w i s
e m a n j a @earthlink.net).

What you are seeing should not be happening.

I went back and looked at the source on Paul's message and it
appears that he also is using the same version of Entourage as
you are (version 11.1.0.040913 - do a "View message source" type
function on his posting to see this). Entourage does not appear
to be behaving the way it is supposed to.

If you look at my postings, you should see not only a "From:"
field value (i.e., the [email protected] value), but you should
also see a "Reply-to:" field value as well (a field value of
(e-mail address removed)). I know that they are
both there because I can go into this thread and view them myself.

Since the dawn of e-mail, when you do a reply to sender, the
"To:" field of the newly composed message would be automatically
populated from the original message's "From:" field *UNLESS* the
optional "Reply-to:" field was also present in the original
message. In that case the e-mail client is supposed to use the
value in the "Reply-to:" field instead of the "From:" field.

If Entourage is not doing this, it is probably broken. It may
have some strange capability to override this algorithm that for
some bizarre reason has been set up as a default by Microsoft
(yea, like *THAT* wouldn't ever happen...), but I can't imagine why.

I'm not fully versed in the standards that govern e-mail and
usenet posting protocols, but I've been using various e-mail
clients now for nearly 30 years and I've never heard of a client
intentionally ignoring or stipping the Reply-to field.

I don't have Entourage installed so I can't verify this.
Microsoft's attitude of integrating all of their e-mail, usenet,
address books, calendars, etc., etc. into large monolithic
application environments with every feature in the system (along
with its associated bugs) has been the primary source of the bulk
of all trojans, worms, and viruses on the network. I have
absolutly no faith in those products and I have to have rather
extreme needs to justify putting them on my computers.

Anyway, this may or may not be a known issue with Entourage, but
if Entourage's use is widespread on this group, then I may need
to change my anti-spam tactics when I post here.

--

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

 

[Jeff Wiseman]

Good catch, John. I never noticed that.

Actually, it makes no difference which view (Preview Pane, i.e. 3-pane view,
or separate message window). The difference is whether you click "Reply to
All" (or same in Message menu) - meaning Reply to Newsgroup and also CC
sender - or do Reply to Sender in Message menu - meaning email only. In the
first case, the cc email does go to the Reply-To header entry. In the second
case, it goes to the From.

That's a BUG. I'll report it, but MacBU is known for not being too active to
fix news-only bugs since news is a very low "convenience" priority.

Exactly. I prefer the term FAULT, since that is far more
descriptive of what it really is. "Bug" is a cute term that tends
to play down the fact that the software company is selling broken
software and expecting to get big bucks for it. This is because
in the software profession, a "bug" is usually a coding error.
Logical or feature level faults are far more serious (and usually
involve more systems level failures in specifying requirements IMHO).

I've done a little research and I've found that this fault goes
back to at least summer 2001 where I've found other complaints on
line about this.

In email, clicking Reply will send the reply to the Reply-To header entry,
as it should. It's a mistake that Reply to Sender in news (a special
feature, to be sure, but still...) does not work the same way, even though
Reply to All does. I'm sure this was an oversight, not intentional.

All bugs are oversights. Intentional "bugs" are usually grouped
in the same catagory as viruses and worms. The problem is why the
oversight occured and why it has been around so long. Incompetent
systems definition, Bad corporate testing policies, inexperienced
programmers being left to "define all the rules" are all reasons.
The fact is, a functional flaw as basic as this should never
appear in any product.

All just IMHO of course.