H
Holger_Gerhardt
I’m using Word for Mac 2008 (German version) on Mac OS X 10.5.2, and I’ve run into several problems when using PostScript-based OpenType fonts, with the first one being the most serious one:
1. Irregular character spacing
Word:mac 2008’s character spacing becomes severely messed up when using some of the most popular OpenType fonts (I’ve observed this with Adobe Garamond Pro, Minion Pro, and Myriad Pro and with FontShop’s Meta Pro):
When typing text in one of these OpenType fonts, everything looks fine at first. Saving and reopening the document also causes no problems. However, upon quitting Word and then reopening the document, its character spacing becomes horrid: Some characters cling together much too tightly, while there is too much whitespace between others.
This is independent of whether you save the document in the .docx (Open XML) or in the .doc format. Version compatibility does seem to play a role, though: Changing the compatibility settings from “Microsoft Word 2007–2008” to “Microsoft Word 2000–2004 and X” in the “Word” –> “Preferences” menu provides a temporary solution—but only until the next restart of Word.
(Please note that this is different from the ligature/kerning issues discussed elsewhere: <http://www.officeformac.com/ProductForums/Word/891>, <http://www.officeformac.com/ProductForums/Word/520.)>
SOLUTION: Fortunately, there exists a workaround for this: Saving the document in the RTF format makes the issue disappear!
This, of course, raises a question: Might any features of my documents be lost when I save them in the RTF format instead of the Open XML format?
2. Font list issue:
The OpenType fonts Meta Pro, Scala Pro and Scala Sans Pro—all distributed by FontShop—appear neither in the “Font” menu nor in the font list of the Formatting Palette. (Something similar has been noted in entry #9 on <http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?p=452775.)>
They do appear, however, in the font list obtained by choosing the “Format” menu and then “Font”. There, the typefaces’ names are listed as “MetaPro-Normal”, “ScalaPro-Regular”, and “ScalaSansPro-Regular”, respectively.
In InDesign’s font list, all fonts are displayed properly.
3. Kerning
The kerning for the Scala Pro font does not work under Word:mac 2008. Surprisingly, kerning does work for its sans-serif companion, Scala Sans Pro.
With InDesign, the kerning of the Scala Pro font works perfectly well.
1. Irregular character spacing
Word:mac 2008’s character spacing becomes severely messed up when using some of the most popular OpenType fonts (I’ve observed this with Adobe Garamond Pro, Minion Pro, and Myriad Pro and with FontShop’s Meta Pro):
When typing text in one of these OpenType fonts, everything looks fine at first. Saving and reopening the document also causes no problems. However, upon quitting Word and then reopening the document, its character spacing becomes horrid: Some characters cling together much too tightly, while there is too much whitespace between others.
This is independent of whether you save the document in the .docx (Open XML) or in the .doc format. Version compatibility does seem to play a role, though: Changing the compatibility settings from “Microsoft Word 2007–2008” to “Microsoft Word 2000–2004 and X” in the “Word” –> “Preferences” menu provides a temporary solution—but only until the next restart of Word.
(Please note that this is different from the ligature/kerning issues discussed elsewhere: <http://www.officeformac.com/ProductForums/Word/891>, <http://www.officeformac.com/ProductForums/Word/520.)>
SOLUTION: Fortunately, there exists a workaround for this: Saving the document in the RTF format makes the issue disappear!
This, of course, raises a question: Might any features of my documents be lost when I save them in the RTF format instead of the Open XML format?
2. Font list issue:
The OpenType fonts Meta Pro, Scala Pro and Scala Sans Pro—all distributed by FontShop—appear neither in the “Font” menu nor in the font list of the Formatting Palette. (Something similar has been noted in entry #9 on <http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?p=452775.)>
They do appear, however, in the font list obtained by choosing the “Format” menu and then “Font”. There, the typefaces’ names are listed as “MetaPro-Normal”, “ScalaPro-Regular”, and “ScalaSansPro-Regular”, respectively.
In InDesign’s font list, all fonts are displayed properly.
3. Kerning
The kerning for the Scala Pro font does not work under Word:mac 2008. Surprisingly, kerning does work for its sans-serif companion, Scala Sans Pro.
With InDesign, the kerning of the Scala Pro font works perfectly well.