Word2004 indicating every font is corrupt

[Eneskay]

Recently, when my wife fired up Word2004 to work on her resume, the
application reported (one by one, of course.....oy!) that essentially every
font on her system was corrupt. No other application has reported any
problems with her fonts. I tried the Microsoft AutoUpdate application and
there were no updates available.

This is all on OS 10.4.3/Office 2004. Once she finally decided to stick to
it and click "okay" for each and every font, Word finished opening and
appeared to be operating normally.

Is there a known bug that might cause this? How can we keep Word from doing
this every time she wants to start it up?

Neal

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Recently, when my wife fired up Word2004 to work on her resume, the
application reported (one by one, of course.....oy!) that essentially every
font on her system was corrupt. No other application has reported any
problems with her fonts. I tried the Microsoft AutoUpdate application and
there were no updates available.

It could be that the Office font cache is corrupted and the font is
perfectly OK. You can trash the Office font cache that's in
~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft (make sure no Office app is running
before you trash it).
The cache will be re-created clean from scratch. That's not a bad thing
to do in any case.

Corentin

 

[Eneskay]

It could be that the Office font cache is corrupted and the font is
perfectly OK. You can trash the Office font cache that's in
~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft (make sure no Office app is running
before you trash it).
The cache will be re-created clean from scratch. That's not a bad thing
to do in any case.

Corentin

Thanks - I'll give that a try.

Neal

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Neal,

To the best of my recollection, there was no ultimate solution for this
problem but here¹s what seemed to help many:

1. Be sure you have both Office and your OS fully updated. See here for
more: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/Update.htm>
(If using Safari, hit Refresh once or twice; better yet, use another browser
for this site.)

2. Make absolutely sure there are no duplicate fonts. Use Font Book or a
third part application to resolve duplicates.

3. If you need the OS 9 fonts, keep only the necessary ones. If you don't
need them, rename or delete the OS 9 fonts folder.

4. Trash both the Office and System font caches as follows:

Office Font Cache: ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office Font Cache (11)

Com.apple.ATS.plist (Home/Library/Prefs)
Com.apple.ATS (/Library/Caches)
FontTablesAnnex ( /System/Library/Caches)
All other files whose names include .ATS or font found in
/System/Library/Caches, especially com.apple.ATS.System.fcache and
com.apple.ATSServer.FODB_System

After dragging the caches to the trash, log out, reboot and *then* empty the
trash.

Note: Do not trash the Font Cache Tool.

This *should* help but I make no promises.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
(If using Safari, hit Refresh once or twice ­ or use another browser.)
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>