WYSIWYG Fonts in Dropdown

[3ngin33r]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Processor: Intel I have been researching this for a while now with no success. The issue is that when I open Word 2008 as a standard user, the WYSIWYG dropdown menu does not show the fonts in WYSIWYG format. And yes, it is enabled. That in itself is not a big issue, however, that actually tells me that there is a problem. That problem is that when you choose a font from the dropdown menu, a different font shows up, i.e. I choose "Curls MT" I get "Chalkboard". This happens with jsut about any font that is chosen. This is not on just one machine, but an entire lab of about 25 machines.

I have already tried the following "fixes". I will post the links so they can be read in full as a couple are lengthy.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/884403

http://forum.soft32.com/mac/Font-dropdown-problem-Word-2008-Mac-OS-10-Intel-ftopict106345.html

http://word.mvps.org/Mac/DamagedPrefs.html

I have done these in the order posted with absolutely no change. I have removed the Office 2008 Suite and reinstalled it from scratch with no success. All the updates have been done for the product, 12.2.1.

What seems to be strange is that the only user that sees things correctly is the local admin user. Even when making a network user an admin, that user still does not see things as they should.

BTW, I am running Mac OS 10.5.7.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

 

[3ngin33r]

Juswt an update. Ran the newest update that just came out yesterday, 12.2.3. Still no luck. Anyone? Please post even if you are having the same issue please.

 

[3ngin33r]

I apologize, as I can't edit my previous posts.

I found one other thing to be standard with this issue. If the account is local to the machine, all works fine. If it is a network account, i get this problem.

 

[CyberTaz]

Hello ______;

Understandably, this isn't what you would like to hear but it's
increasingly apparent that the problem doesn't lie with Office or Word... At
least not entirely. That's supported by the fact that it doesn't occur for
all users on the same Mac [they're all running the same exact installation
of the software] combined with the fact that reinstalling Office has had no
effect on the issue -- assuming that Remove Office was appropriately used
rather than dragging stuff to the Trash or simply running the installer over
the existing installation. Neither of the latter options will ever improve
anything & often serve to make things worse. If it were the software *all*
User Accounts -- Admin or not -- would demonstrate the same behavior.

Nor does there appear to be any widespread report of similar behavior. In
the few instances that have been addressed here the suggestions you cite
seem to have corrected things for those respective users. Consequently, it's
quite unlikely that any updates to Office 2008 will correct the situation
either. It has to be something specific to your local installations [please
understand that I don't mean that as a criticism].

I honestly don't know what more to suggest other than putting the individual
systems, utility/helper software & Account settings under an even more
powerful microscope. The one thing in your favor is that whatever it is
that's causing the problem is probably something which is common to all of
the Macs in the lab.

One thing that may be related: Your post indicates that the systems are
still running OS X 10.5.7 -- Have you considered updating to 10.5.8 using
the Combo updater from the Apple Downloads site? The Combos are far more
thorough in what they address than the "watered-down" updates supplied by
Software Update. Perhaps that will make a difference.

Also, something not specifically mentioned in any of what you've tried: Use
Font Book (or comparable program) to Resolve Duplicates & Validate Fonts.

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

 

[j]

Understandably, this isn't what you would like to hear but it's
increasingly apparent that the problem doesn't lie with Office or Word...
At least not entirely. [...]
Nor does there appear to be any widespread report of similar behavior. In
the few instances that have been addressed here the suggestions you cite
seem to have corrected things for those respective users.

Juswt an update. Ran the newest update that just came out yesterday,
12.2.3. Still no luck. Anyone? Please post even if you are having the
same issue please.

I'm having similar problems with Word 2008 (trial). Fonts do not show as
WYSIWYG, and worse, selecting fonts from the menu (either from the
toolbox or the Font menu) results in a different font being active (e.g.
select Arial, and get American Typewriter).

If I switch to a different User on the same machine everything works as
expected.

I have tried the fixes mentioned in the links above. I've also
completely removed Word using the Remove program and also manually
trashed any leftover preferences or folders.

On re-installing, I unchecked the option to install Office fonts, but
still the same behaviour.

I've tried disabling fonts from various folders, and completely emptying
the User/Library/Fonts folder.

Also tried trashing prefs and Office font cache files. I used Main Menu
utility to clean font caches. Reboots. No change.

Tiger 10.4.11. PowerPC G4.

(My reason for installing Office 2008 trial is that I might have an
offer of some freelance work to help lay out a report. However, if I
can't get a reliable version of Word running, I'll probably have to turn
it down)

To the original poster: Did you manage to find a solution?

 

[John McGhie]

OK, yours is a new problem, it's best to make it a new post.

The real answer to your question is "Define the fonts you want to use into
formatting Styles in Word."

A "Style" is simply a "collection of formatting that has a name". There are
147 styles built-in, and if that's not enough (it will be!) you can easily
create your own.

Apply a style, and you know the font is correct: you never have to look, you
never have to see the Font drop-down, and you never have to think about
fonts ever again. All formatting in Word is a style internally, whether it
looks like it or not. If you format everything using styles, you will have
a long and happy life with Word.

That's the real answer But to sort the problem on your system, you need
to take a patient "structured" approach:

What's been happening here is that you have been "stirring things up" in the
"shotgun approach", and hoping that 'something' will resolve the problem.
This particular problem is one that does not respond to such an approach

First off let's set some ground-rules:

1) This is not a problem with the Office software. So please stop
uninstalling/re-installing. Each time you re-install, you create a mixture
of preferences and have a possibility of making things worse.

2) The cure for this will not work unless OS X and Office 2008 are fully
up-to-date with the latest Apple and Microsoft updates.

Now, to work...

Part of the cause of this seems to be (and I say 'seems to be' because we
can't prove it...) the action of one or more "Font Managers" across multiple
font folders.

So the first thing I always recommend (and what I do myself) is to move all
fonts into a single font folder. My suggestion would be to put them all
into the System font folder at /Library/Fonts That way, they will be
available to all users on the computer.

The next thing I recommend is to "Enable" all of the fonts in all of the
applications and leave them that way. If you have fonts enabling and
disabling themselves as applications start and stop, you will forever live
in "interesting times".

Now, if you do not have the Microsoft fonts installed, put them back in now.
They are required for Office to function correctly.

AFTER you have done that, you need to delete both the Office Font Cache and
the OS X Font Cache. The Office font cache is built from the content of the
OS X Font Cache. Office checks its Font Cache against the OS X font cache
when the first Office application starts following reboot. If you have
changed the fonts without rebuilding the OS X font cache, the Office cache
won't be rebuilt and you get these problems.

So delete both caches, then (before you do anything else) shut the computer
down. Wait about a minute (more than 10 seconds, less than two minutes, the
time is significant) and restart the computer.

This "Power-off reboot" triggers Unix to perform its system housekeeping
tasks, which clean out the temporary files and rebuild the OS X Font Cache
(among other things). The system may be a bit slow to start while all of
this is going on.

Now start FontBook and RESOLVE all the duplicates. If you have a default
installation of OS 10.6 and a default installation of Office 2008, there
will be some font duplicates, and until they are resolved, Office won't
function correctly. FontBook will select all the duplicates and you can
just Delete them: it will leave you with the latest version of each font.

Now start Word. Again, it will start up slowly the first time, because it
will re-create its font cache, based on the content of the OS X font cache.

Within limits, all should now be working correctly. By "within limits" I
need to add a couple of disclaimers. The first is that the Trial Version is
not complete, and some things don't work right unless you are using a
paid-for copy. The second is that Office 2008 is a Universal application,
but it was designed and coded for OS 10.6 on Intel, and it never seems to
run 'perfectly' on a PowerPC.

That said, it will go a lot better than it is going currently: certainly
well enough to get that job and perform it without problems

There's far too much caching of stuff going on in OS X, but you and I can't
alter that, we just have to live with it

Hope this helps

I'm having similar problems with Word 2008 (trial). Fonts do not show as
WYSIWYG, and worse, selecting fonts from the menu (either from the
toolbox or the Font menu) results in a different font being active (e.g.
select Arial, and get American Typewriter).

If I switch to a different User on the same machine everything works as
expected.

I have tried the fixes mentioned in the links above. I've also
completely removed Word using the Remove program and also manually
trashed any leftover preferences or folders.

On re-installing, I unchecked the option to install Office fonts, but
still the same behaviour.

I've tried disabling fonts from various folders, and completely emptying
the User/Library/Fonts folder.

Also tried trashing prefs and Office font cache files. I used Main Menu
utility to clean font caches. Reboots. No change.

Tiger 10.4.11. PowerPC G4.

(My reason for installing Office 2008 trial is that I might have an
offer of some freelance work to help lay out a report. However, if I
can't get a reliable version of Word running, I'll probably have to turn
it down)

To the original poster: Did you manage to find a solution?

--

Mactopia is currently broken: the helpers are not seeing any of the
questions being posted. Microsoft is working on the problem. In the
meantime:

To successfully post in here, either use Google:
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.mac.office.word?lnk=

Or Microsoft Communities:
http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=micros
oft.public.mac.office.word&cat=en_US_3cf8ecf1-ca81-4391-b07d-8933029ee8a9&la
ng=en&cr=US

Or in Entourage, use the pre-configured Microsoft News server:
See "setting up Entourage for Newsreading" here:
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/AccessNewsgroups.html

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters 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]

 

[j]

OK, yours is a new problem, it's best to make it a new post.

Thanks for taking the time to make this detailed reply. I appreciate it.

The real answer to your question is "Define the fonts you want to use into
formatting Styles in Word."

Yes, I intend to use styles. But even the styles formatting window has
the same problem: fonts can only be selected by typing the name, or by
selecting the name and using the keyboard up-down arrow keys to navigate
the list.

Part of the cause of this seems to be (and I say 'seems to be' because we
can't prove it...) the action of one or more "Font Managers" across multiple
font folders.

So the first thing I always recommend (and what I do myself) is to move all
fonts into a single font folder. My suggestion would be to put them all
into the System font folder at /Library/Fonts That way, they will be
available to all users on the computer.

The next thing I recommend is to "Enable" all of the fonts in all of the
applications and leave them that way. If you have fonts enabling and
disabling themselves as applications start and stop, you will forever live
in "interesting times".

Now, if you do not have the Microsoft fonts installed, put them back in now.
They are required for Office to function correctly.

AFTER you have done that, you need to delete both the Office Font Cache and
the OS X Font Cache. The Office font cache is built from the content of the
OS X Font Cache. Office checks its Font Cache against the OS X font cache
when the first Office application starts following reboot. If you have
changed the fonts without rebuilding the OS X font cache, the Office cache
won't be rebuilt and you get these problems.

So delete both caches, then (before you do anything else) shut the computer
down. Wait about a minute (more than 10 seconds, less than two minutes, the
time is significant) and restart the computer.

This "Power-off reboot" triggers Unix to perform its system housekeeping
tasks, which clean out the temporary files and rebuild the OS X Font Cache
(among other things). The system may be a bit slow to start while all of
this is going on.

Now start FontBook and RESOLVE all the duplicates. If you have a default
installation of OS 10.6 and a default installation of Office 2008, there
will be some font duplicates, and until they are resolved, Office won't
function correctly. FontBook will select all the duplicates and you can
just Delete them: it will leave you with the latest version of each font.

Now start Word. Again, it will start up slowly the first time, because it
will re-create its font cache, based on the content of the OS X font cache.

Within limits, all should now be working correctly. By "within limits" I
need to add a couple of disclaimers. The first is that the Trial Version is
not complete, and some things don't work right unless you are using a
paid-for copy. The second is that Office 2008 is a Universal application,
but it was designed and coded for OS 10.6 on Intel, and it never seems to
run 'perfectly' on a PowerPC.

That said, it will go a lot better than it is going currently: certainly
well enough to get that job and perform it without problems

There's far too much caching of stuff going on in OS X, but you and I can't
alter that, we just have to live with it

I've followed you instrutions, but the problem remains.

Almost all my fonts are now in Macintosh HD/Library/Fonts. (I don't
change anything in Macintosh HD/System/Library/Fonts as this folder is
used for core system fonts and it's best to leave it alone). Microsoft
fonts have been reinstalled.

The only other location of fonts are:

1. The Classic System Folder: Macintosh HD/System Folder/Fonts
There are 12 fonts in here. None are duplicates.

2. Adobe fonts stored in Macintosh HD/Library/Application
Support/Adobe/Fonts

There are other fonts in my Documents folder, but they are not activated
by font management software.

Font Book has resolved all duplicates and validated all fonts.

I've cleaned the font cache files and performed the reboots as
instructed above.

It's strange that the only program having font problems is Word. All
other programs from humble text editors to InDesign are working fine.

Also, it's going to be a problem if I can't activate/deactivate any
fonts in future without going through the process of cleaning font
caches.

I've run out of ideas short of switching to a different User account to
get the work done.

 

[CyberTaz]

This may be the source of your problem... Although why it would affect only
the one user account I'm not sure. [Possibly because the problem account is
an Admin but the other isn't?]

<snip>

1. The Classic System Folder: Macintosh HD/System Folder/Fonts
There are 12 fonts in here. None are duplicates.

<snip>

There is no Classic support in OS X 10.5 or later or on Intel Macs so that
font folder is utterly useless. It is most likely a holdover from a previous
life & the fonts in it may very well be arcane. Try removing it from the
System folder, shut down for a minute or two, repair disk permissions after
you start up & see if the problem continues.

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

 

[j]

I've finally found a solution. The problem seems to be that Word was
looking for fonts in inactive Font Book collections.

I had made some experimental collections in Font Book which were linked
to a folder of fonts in my User/Documents folder.

Even though these fonts (and the entire collection) were deactivated in
Font Book, Word was still adding them to its font list.

I have deleted the extra font collections in Font Book. Made an archive
of the font folder in my User/Documents folder (I'm not sure this was
necessary), then rebuilt system and Word font caches.

It looks like Font Book and Word don't always play well together.

 

[3ngin33r]

sry it took so long to respond, busy as hell at work. I did find the solution. It has to do with my clients connecting to the server via smb. If I change it to afp, it all works fine.