Word needs the font named...

[Clive Huggan]

On 6/4/07 10:09 PM, in article
1hw5iwa.lrbhrwsyju98N%[email protected], "Merlin"

99% of my documents don't stray beyond Times and Helvetica.

Keith

Keith, inferring from your initial post that you are using OS X and not
Classic, I'd recommend that you use Times New Roman and Arial in Word
documents rather than Times and Helvetica. The latter were the "old
reliables" in OS 9 and earlier, but Word 2004 -- especially because of the
ATSUI interface -- doesn't render them nearly as well as Times New Roman and
Arial. And as you have found, font substitution comes into play (and will
when/if other people display the documents).

Similarly, the "city" fonts are old pre-OS X fonts.

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from North America and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
============================================================

 

[Elliott Roper]

On 6/4/07 10:09 PM, in article
1hw5iwa.lrbhrwsyju98N%[email protected], "Merlin"

<snip>

Keith, inferring from your initial post that you are using OS X and not
Classic, I'd recommend that you use Times New Roman and Arial in Word
documents rather than Times and Helvetica. The latter were the "old
reliables" in OS 9 and earlier, but Word 2004 -- especially because of the
ATSUI interface -- doesn't render them nearly as well as Times New Roman and
Arial. And as you have found, font substitution comes into play (and will
when/if other people display the documents).

...and while you are being thorough about it, make sure you get the
right TNR and Arial. If you have earlier versions splattered about your
machine by previous versions of Office, you will get strange results.
Don't completely trust version numbers. Don't completely trust release
dates. Read the "get info" on each variation carefully. Then choose the
biggest file. ;-) (Word 2004 was the first with 16 bit per character
Unicode fonts)

I'm with John on font managers. The fewer messes between your fonts and
Office the better. I (currently playing silly games) run about 600,
many with 20 variants each, with nothing but Font Book. There is very
little performance penalty once Word is running. It ain't perfect even
so. One or two fonts are invisible to Word for no reason I can discern.

Once in a blue moon, I use the font menu. With the wysiwyg nonsense
turned off, it is possible to navigate very quickly by typing the first
few characters of whatever name Word idiosyncratically decides to call
it.
One of the silly games I have been playing with fonts is experimenting
with locating fonts in ~/Library rather than /Library. I now have most
in ~/Library with the idea of keeping my Admin account lean as can be.

I have not yet got to the bottom of Office Installation's font spraying
strategies. Keeping all but the bare essentials out of /Library fonts
was supposed to make it easier to spot what it does. I don't install
Office all that often, so it would be nice if there were some
documentation about it.

 

[CyberTaz]

<snip>

That's because it's nearly impossible to figure out where these things are.

<snip>

How I can attest to that!!! - Especially where users have relied heavily on
_direct_ formatting compounded by constant revision & "I changed my mind"
reformatting. Just two scenarios:

1- Joe directly formats a heading as "font a" by selecting the entire para.
Later he or someone else decides to reformat the heading as "font b" but
drags to select just the text without selecting (or even realizing there is
a) ¶ at the end of the text. Voila - doc now has a need for *both* "font a"
and "font b",

2- Many people cling to the "two spaces between sentences" dodge made
prominent by the manual typewriter's mono-spaced shortcomings[1]. Just
imagine how easy it is - even for an "experienced" user to miss one of those
two spaces when selecting text to change font. You now have a doc that is
calling for "font b", but there's as little as _one space_ in the doc that's
still calling for "font a".

On the plus side, however, don't overlook Find & Replace for formats.

[1] I've even had people *passionately* argue that two spaces between
sentences is "grammatically correct", but that's a rant to be saved for
another time

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[John McGhie]

<snip>

[1] I've even had people *passionately* argue that two spaces between
sentences is "grammatically correct", but that's a rant to be saved for
another time

NO!!! We're NOT biting. Go troll the Thread from Hell somewhere ELSE

--

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs

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

 

[Merlin]

On 6/4/07 10:09 PM, in article
1hw5iwa.lrbhrwsyju98N%[email protected], "Merlin"





Keith, inferring from your initial post that you are using OS X and not
Classic, I'd recommend that you use Times New Roman and Arial in Word
documents rather than Times and Helvetica. The latter were the "old
reliables" in OS 9 and earlier, but Word 2004 -- especially because of the
ATSUI interface -- doesn't render them nearly as well as Times New Roman and
Arial. And as you have found, font substitution comes into play (and will
when/if other people display the documents).

Similarly, the "city" fonts are old pre-OS X fonts.

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from North America and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
============================================================

Point taken, Clive, thanks - and yes, OSX. In fact I was being
figurative, not literal, indeed my Normal includes TNR and Arial, not
the other two. I was making the point that , in Word, myfont needs were
simple - sorry for the confusion.

Merl

 

[Merlin]

Hi Keith:

You notice how delicately I tap-danced around saying things like "Formatting
commands you have used..." ??

That's because it's nearly impossible to figure out where these things are.
They can be in almost any strcture that formats text. There are thousands
of places they could be hiding. One that is almost impossible to detect is
in Bullets or Numbering list templates. There can be several hundred list
templates in a document, and NONE of them may be in use, actually applied to
any text in the document.

That's why I tend to use the global substitution method you just discovered.
It changes the names in the internal FONT table held in the document to
globally substitute the name of the font called wherever it is called.

OK, let's simlify the problem down to manageable proportions

The only documents we need to be concerned with are the ones you intend to
type in this week. So 23,470 of them can simply be ignored They call
for fonts you don't have: Word will automatically substitute the next
closest available font when you do open them, and until then, out of sight,
out of mind

Now here's a radical thought for you: Why are you USING a Font Manager at
all? I'm a documentation professional. I only use a couple of hundred. I
have them all loaded, and I do not run a Font Manager. These days, systems
have plenty of RAM, and if they do, there's no reason you shouldn't leave
your thousand favourite fonts permanently loaded!!

Yes, that will slow your boot-up time slightly. But in OS X, how often do
you actually boot the computer??

Now, if you get the Font Manager(s) out of the picture, many of the font
foibles OS X is sometimes guilty of, will simply go away.

Yes, that means your Font menu in Word is "longer". But most power users of
Word never use that menu Most of us customise the inbuilt styles to
provide all of the formatting we regularly use, and simply apply the styles
when we want the formatting. I doubt if I have used the Font menu EVER in
the past five years!! Compared to using styles, it's just too slow

Maybe some of that will help?

Cheers

Thank you John. Provocative stuff! I think I would base a
justification of a manager on things like conflict resolution,
previewing, and in the case of FontExplorer cache control - things
peripheral to the basic business of getting fonts into documents. But
yes, there are other ways of doing all these things. I also use other
software as well as Word of course. It makes me think tho', thanks for
that!

I saw one comment while researching this - someone arranges for the
Normal template to be trashed every time Word launches using an
Automator action. That's perhaps a help (damage limitation?) but just
as you say above that OSX doesn't get restarted very often, neither does
Word.

The font substitution procedure suffers from a catch 22 I think: I have
to open the old document to make the font substitution and that calls
for the fonts I don't have and possibly "infects" Normal. I need to
play with the font substitution thing more and get the hang of it I
think.

Maybe I'm being unnecessarily obsitnate but I want to sort out this
problem and get on with more important things (OK, so I click always
ignore!). But what I anticipate is that old documents (that I open
either to read, copy from, or review) and perhaps some from colleagues
with a whole other slew of fonts will "infect" my Normal and the problem
starts over again.

In fact, I have just done a bit more testing and there is something else
going on.

I quit Word and delete Normal. Restart Word and start typing in the new
blank document which appears. Immediately I have the string of
requests for these Capital fonts.

So I quit Word and delete Normal, then use FontExplorer to clear out the
application font caches. Restart Word, start typing in the blank doc
and up come the requests again.

So where are they coming from?

Merl

 

[Elliott Roper]

I think you need a Connecticut Yankee.
The fonts are in the document, not in Normal.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Keith:

OK, we eed to be careful to separate myth from reality here. Microsoft (and
Apple...) have a bad habit of "simplifying" things by hiding the details of
what went on behind the scenes from the user. Which means Word sometimes
seems to be possessed by supernatural abilities. That's only true when it
happens to ME

I think I would base a
justification of a manager on things like conflict resolution,
previewing, and in the case of FontExplorer cache control - things
peripheral to the basic business of getting fonts into documents.

Oh, sure! I don't mean to imply that you shouldn't "use" a font manager.
My suggestion is that you do not "run" it permanently. By all means use it
to sort your fonts out, resolve conflicts, etc. But then switch it off

I saw one comment while researching this - someone arranges for the
Normal template to be trashed every time Word launches using an
Automator action.

I know who you're talking about!! An otherwise rational individual John
(other John) spends most of his time in Word doing heavyweight development.
Under those circumstances, inadvertent changes to Normal template are indeed
possible.

However, you are working in Word day to day, using it the way it was
designed to be used. Any changes that you make to your normal are wanted,
and should be preserved. Different working pattern.

Word does not "infect" its Normal template with anything. It writes to it
often, and if you make a life's study of this, you can predict exactly when
it will write to Normal and what it will write. In your case, I would
simply go with the assurance that "Word won't make any changes to your
Normal template that you did not intend."

as you say above that OSX doesn't get restarted very often, neither does
Word.

Allow me to suggest that you change that policy right now. Word leaks
memory like a seive, and they're not going to do anything about that. So
for a long and happy life, ensure that you restart Word at least once a day,
to allow OS X to clean up after it. Otherwise it will slowly choke your
system into a state of severe ill health. Of course you can recover from
that by rebooting: but why bother? Quit Word when you go to lunch, and
again before you run your nightly backup. Word will be a lot more reliable,
and so will your computer

The font substitution procedure suffers from a catch 22 I think: I have
to open the old document to make the font substitution and that calls
for the fonts I don't have and possibly "infects" Normal.

No. Nothing will "infect" Normal template. After it is created, a Document
makes no further reference to the Normal template. Normal is used as the
model from which new documents are created. Word immediately breaks the
association between the two after document creation.

The exception is if you force an association by setting Normal as the
"Attached Template" and then checking the "Update styles on open" button to
ON. Then, Word will copy all styles from the Attached Template each time
the document opens, overwriting any styles of the same name that already
existed in the document.

Since this breaks any numbering in the document each time it happens, we
strongly recommend that you do not use "Automatically update styles on open"
at any time. This advice will change in Word 2008, but in Word 2008 you
will not be dealing with the same kind of files.

Maybe I'm being unnecessarily obsitnate but I want to sort out this
problem and get on with more important things (OK, so I click always
ignore!).

Strongly recommended as a way to spend at least some of your day doing
useful work. I usually click "Get outta my face" on everything too
Microsoft has never been able to comprehend that prompting users with modal
dialog boxes results in an "Automatic Yes" every time, which is worse than
not prompting at all

But what I anticipate is that old documents (that I open
either to read, copy from, or review) and perhaps some from colleagues
with a whole other slew of fonts will "infect" my Normal and the problem
starts over again.

No. Can't happen. Font subsitutions are never transferred BACK from a
document to a template, ever.

I quit Word and delete Normal. Restart Word and start typing in the new
blank document which appears. Immediately I have the string of
requests for these Capital fonts.

So I quit Word and delete Normal, then use FontExplorer to clear out the
application font caches. Restart Word, start typing in the blank doc
and up come the requests again.

So where are they coming from?

I don't know, but they're not coming from Word. I assume that you found and
replaced your Normal template? What I suggest you do is use Finder's Search
to search your system for any file whose name contains "Normal". It is
possible that you have moe than one copy of Normal, and that the copy that
Word is using is one you didn't know about.

Also: Check your Word/Startup folders to see what is in there. If you have
any haxies, add-ins, or "helper" applications running on your computer, it
is possible that oen of them is loading a global template that contains
these calls. Go to Tools>Templates and Add-ins... and see if anything
appears in the Global Add-ins box: if it does, find it and re-name it.

See if that helps...

Cheers

--

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs

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

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Bob:

You're very welcome: I am strugling with Keith/Merlin's problem. The
indications I have seen described so far suggest some other "influence"
outside Word (haxie, add-in, helper application).

We could have a few more rounds of this before we spot this one...

Cheers

--

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs

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

 

[CyberTaz]

<snip>

So where are they coming from?

<snip>

What version of FEX are you running? I'm not certain how pertinent it may
be, but just thought I'd throw in the following...

The most current is 1.1.2 released 1/27 & one of the items listed as "Fixed"
in this update is:

Fixed a bug when detecting fonts in documents

But even that doesn't show Word in the list of supported plug-ins.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Merlin]

<snip>

<snip>

What version of FEX are you running? I'm not certain how pertinent it may
be, but just thought I'd throw in the following...

The most current is 1.1.2 released 1/27 & one of the items listed as "Fixed"
in this update is:

Fixed a bug when detecting fonts in documents

But even that doesn't show Word in the list of supported plug-ins.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

Now there's a thought! I'm using 1.1.2 "Build 1A060", no date is
mentioned but checking the web site says that is the latest build. Nice
try tho'! Thanks Bob.

 

[Merlin]

Elliott! This is a blank document. I start Word, a new blank document
comes up immediately (well, almost), and I type one character (in TNR as
that is the default) and bingo: requests for these damned fonts. They
can't be in the document. Can they?

Merl

 

[Merlin]

Allow me to suggest that you change that policy right now. Word leaks
memory like a seive, and they're not going to do anything about that. So
for a long and happy life, ensure that you restart Word at least once a day,
to allow OS X to clean up after it. Otherwise it will slowly choke your
system into a state of severe ill health. Of course you can recover from
that by rebooting: but why bother? Quit Word when you go to lunch, and
again before you run your nightly backup. Word will be a lot more reliable,
and so will your computer

This is a valuable tip, if a little worrrying, thank you. As of now
Word will be restarted regularly.

<snip>

OK, I accept your assurances that I'm barking up the wrong tree
suspecting Normal of perpetuating the Capital font issue.

I don't know, but they're not coming from Word. I assume that you found and
replaced your Normal template? What I suggest you do is use Finder's Search
to search your system for any file whose name contains "Normal". It is
possible that you have moe than one copy of Normal, and that the copy that
Word is using is one you didn't know about.

Also: Check your Word/Startup folders to see what is in there. If you have
any haxies, add-ins, or "helper" applications running on your computer, it
is possible that oen of them is loading a global template that contains
these calls. Go to Tools>Templates and Add-ins... and see if anything
appears in the Global Add-ins box: if it does, find it and re-name it.

A couple of good thoughts here, at least one of which I should have
thought of myself. <kicks self> But neither helped.

I searched for any other Normals and there were none.

The Word start up folder contains some stuff, zippped it, deleted it,
tried again, same result. Unzipped and replaced. Same result. I did
find something there I didn't recognise:

mw_mac_msword.dot

does that ring any bells? The other stuff is for a Dymo printer, Sente
and EndNote.

No haxies (that I'm aware of, he adds cautiously).

Loads of helper apps, I mean, that's what apps are isn't it? Except
perhaps Word <grin>.

Turning off FontExplorer stops the alerts (obviously as they are
generated by FE!) but I cannot believe that Word stops generating the
font requests, FE simply makes them visible.

So what's causing the requests to be made?

One other possible clue: when Word starts it generates another font
request for Myriad (which FE makes visible). FE says it is not on my
system and, strictly speaking, it isn't - there's Myriad Bold, Myriad
Italic, etc, but no simple Myriad. I'm guessing that this is the name
of the font in the Windows environment? Note that this request occurs
during Word start-up, the other Capital requests occur as soon as I
start typing in a new blank document.

Many thanks for your persistence, John!

Keith

 

[Elliott Roper]

Elliott! This is a blank document. I start Word, a new blank document
comes up immediately (well, almost), and I type one character (in TNR as
that is the default) and bingo: requests for these damned fonts. They
can't be in the document. Can they?

Nope. If they are not coming from normal or one of your global
templates (which I see you have covered with John McGhie) I have to
put it down to PFM. I'm at a loss.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Keith:

I did
find something there I didn't recognise:

mw_mac_msword.dot

I don't recognise it either, but I have a feeling I should Please send
me a copy: I would like to have a look inside it.

In the same zip file, please create a new documet, type a couple of quick
brown foxes, put numbering on one paragraph, bullets on one paragraph, and
heading one on one paragraph, and send that to me too.

I want to take a look inside the document structue and see if I can see
where those calls are coming from.

Cheers

--

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs

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

 

[Merlin]

Hi Keith:



I don't recognise it either, but I have a feeling I should Please send
me a copy: I would like to have a look inside it.

In the same zip file, please create a new documet, type a couple of quick
brown foxes, put numbering on one paragraph, bullets on one paragraph, and
heading one on one paragraph, and send that to me too.

I want to take a look inside the document structue and see if I can see
where those calls are coming from.

John

Thank you very much for tackling this!

I have just noticed one other peculiarity. Normally I start Word and
then start opening documents - this generates the request for Myriad and
the Capital fonts.

By mistake I just clicked on a Word document when Word was not open.
The Myriad request came up but not the Capital Fonts.

Odd!

Keith

 

[Merlin]

John

Thank you very much for tackling this!

I have just noticed one other peculiarity. Normally I start Word and
then start opening documents - this generates the request for Myriad and
the Capital fonts.

By mistake I just clicked on a Word document when Word was not open.
The Myriad request came up but not the Capital Fonts.

A little more information: under these conditions there were no Capital
requests until I started typing information into the print dialog box.
Immediately the requests popped up with the first character typed.

The thot plickens!

Keith

 

[John McGhie [MVP Word, Word Mac]]

Hi Keith:

OK, I think I have found it. mw_mac_msword.dot is an application produced
for Merriam Webster to enable you to look up words in a Word document. It
makes VBA and AppleScript calls to an application it expects to find on your
computer.

If that application is not present, anything could happen: the way it is
coded, if it hits an error, it just carries on.

It expects to find a toolbar in Word to which it wants to add a button.

re-naming this one will not be enough: drag it and all of its copies out of
your startup folders and onto your desktop. Then reboot

See if that fixes it!

Cheers

--

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. GMT + 10 Hrs
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Merlin]

Hi John

Mmmm... I wonder... I cleared out the Word start-up folder earlier in
the saga and tried with it empty. It didn't fix the problem. I wonder
whether restarting the OS will make the difference...

Well, no, it didn't. The symptoms were exactly the same: Word starts
and I get a request for Myriad, then as soon as I type one character in
a blank document I get the string of Capital requests.

Did you see the other couple of posts I made here? Repeated here:

I have just noticed one other peculiarity. Normally I start Word and
then start opening documents - this generates the request for Myriad and
the Capital fonts.

By mistake I just clicked on a Word document when Word was not open.
The Myriad request came up but not the Capital Fonts.

Under these conditions there were no Capital
requests until I started typing information into the print dialog box.
Immediately the requests popped up with the first character typed.

Keith