Microsoft Word For Mac Font Problems

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Note

Oct 12, 2017 As a Word for Mac 2016 user I recently upgraded to the new High Sierra OS. Unfortunately it is raising havoc with my fonts. Here is the problem. As a writer I have used Times New Roman as my default font for years. I have always used it with curly quotes as that is what my editors prefer. TrueType is a type of font developed in the 1980s between Apple and Microsoft that offers greater control over how fonts display. It became the most common format for fonts for a time. OpenType is the successor to TrueType, developed by Adobe and Microsoft. It contains both PostScript and TrueType outlines. Apr 18, 2014 In Apple’s Font Book, you can click the All Fonts collection, followed by clicking a font and then pressing Command-A to select all fonts on the system. Then choose “Validate Fonts” from the File menu, and the program will check for conflicts, compatibility, and damage to your fonts. Sep 17, 2012 According to this report, there are two unrelated font problems with Microsoft Word 2011 for Mac: (1) Word 2011 for Mac does not support.otf fonts (OT/CFF) with an UPM of 3333. (Word 2011 for Mac does support.otf fonts with an UPM of 1000. Word 2011 for Mac does support.ttf fonts with an UPM of 3333.).

Office 365 ProPlus is being renamed to Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise. For more information about this change, read this blog post.

Microsoft Word For Mac Font Problems Pdf

Symptoms

After you install a font into the Fonts folder in the operating system and start Microsoft Word for Mac, the font unexpectedly is not available in the Font dialog box, in the drop-down list, or in the Formatting Palette.

Cause

Third-party fonts are not directly supported in Microsoft Office for Mac applications. Some third-party fonts may work in one application and not in another. Other third-party fonts are installed in a 'family'. A family usually consists of the third-party font itself together with some or all of its variations (bold, italic, and so forth). Sometimes, a font may be displayed in Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel, or Microsoft Entourage, but you may be unable to use one of its variations, such as italic.

Office does not support custom fonts. This includes any fonts that were manipulated by a font or typography program.

Note

Microsoft Office for Mac technical support does not provide support for installing or configuring third-party fonts.

Basic font troubleshooting

If the following methods don't resolve your font issue, contact the font manufacturer or the website from which you purchased the fonts.

First, restart your computer, and then test the font again. Some installations are not complete until the computer is restarted. This also makes sure that all applications are restarted after the installation.

Method 1

  1. Clear the font caches. To do this, quit all Microsoft Office applications. On the Home menu, click **Go **> Applications, and then click Apple's Font Book.

  2. On the Edit menu, click Select Duplicated Fonts.

  3. On the Edit menu, click Resolve Duplicates.

  4. To remove all the fonts from the computer that Font Book just disabled, follow these steps:

    1. After the duplicates have been resolved, select each disabled font, click File > Reveal in Finder, and then drag it to the trash.
    2. You may notice that Font Book sometimes turns off the newer copy of the font instead of the older one. If you prefer the newer copy, drag the older one to the trash, and then re-enable the new one.
  5. Restart the computer. Apple OS X will rebuild its font cache, and Word will rebuild its font cache from that.

  6. For best performance in Word, try to run with all your fonts enabled all the time. Each time that Word starts, it compares its font cache with the system font cache. If the two don't match, Word will regenerate its own font cache, which can take a few seconds. If you have dynamically enabled fonts, the system font cache will appear different nearly every time that Word runs this comparison.

  7. You must do this every time you install an update, because the Microsoft installer tries to restore the disabled fonts each time.

Method 2

Restart the computer in Safe mode. Then, restart the computer normally. For more information about how to restart your computer in Safe mode, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

2398596 How to use a 'clean startup' to determine whether background programs are interfering with Office for Mac

Method 3

Create a new user account to determine whether the problem is associated with an existing user account.

The font is damaged, or the system is not reading the font

If the font is not a custom font and does not appear in your Office program, the font may be damaged. To reinstall the font, see Mac OS X: Font locations and their purposes.

The third-party products that this article discusses are manufactured by companies that are independent of Microsoft. Microsoft makes no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding the performance or reliability of these products.

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Note

Office 365 ProPlus is being renamed to Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise. For more information about this change, read this blog post.

Summary

This article contains an overview of fonts. Additionally, it describes how to troubleshoot font problems in Microsoft Office Word 2007 and later.

More Information

Overview of fonts

A font is a graphic design that is applied to a collection of numbers, symbols, and characters. A font specifies qualities such as typeface, size, spacing, and pitch. Fonts are used to print text on various output devices and to display text on the screen. Fonts have font styles such as italic, bold, and bold italic.

Outline fonts

TrueType fonts and OpenType fonts are outline fonts that are rendered from line commands and from curve commands. OpenType is an extension of TrueType. Both TrueType fonts and OpenType fonts can be scaled and rotated. TrueType fonts and OpenType fonts look good in all sizes and on all output devices that are supported by Microsoft Windows.

Screen fonts

ClearType fonts are screen fonts that are optimized for an LCD screen. On an LCD screen, ClearType fonts use sub-pixel information to smooth out the fonts' jagged edges.

Printer fonts

In most programs that support printing, you can select among different printer fonts. Printers that offer the widest assortment of fonts include laser printers, ink-jet printers, and dot-matrix printers. You can divide printer fonts into the following three categories:

  • Internal fonts

    Internal fonts are also named resident fonts. Laser printers, ink-jet printers, and dot-matrix printers frequently use internal fonts. Internal fonts are already loaded into the printer's read-only memory (ROM). Internal fonts are always available for printing.

  • Cartridge fonts

    Cartridge fonts are stored in a cartridge or in a card that plugs into the printer. To expand a printer's set of internal fonts, you can install font cartridges. Or, you can load fonts from software.

  • Downloadable fonts

    Downloadable fonts are also named soft fonts. The computer sends downloadable fonts to the printer's memory when the fonts are required for printing. Laser printers and other page printers frequently use downloadable fonts. Some dot-matrix printers also use them. To increase printer speed, you should install downloadable fonts locally on client computers that print to Windows print servers.

For each document that you print, Windows may have to send the screen fonts and the downloadable fonts that the document requires to the printer. To increase printer speed, use the following techniques:

  • Use fonts that do not have to be downloaded, such as internal fonts or cartridge fonts.
  • Some printers have a feature that enables the printer to keep a list of downloadable fonts. If your printer has this feature, make sure that you turn on the feature.
For

Not all printers can use all three types of fonts. For example, pen plotters cannot ordinarily use downloadable fonts. For more information about the types of fonts that you can use, see the printer's documentation.

Raster fonts

Raster fonts are also named bitmapped fonts. They are stored as bitmaps. A bitmap is a pattern of dots. Raster fonts are designed with a specific size and with a specific resolution for a specific printer. You cannot scale or rotate raster fonts. If a printer does not support raster fonts, it will not print them. The following fonts are the five raster fonts:

  • Courier
  • MS Sans Serif
  • MS Serif
  • Small
  • Symbol

Vector fonts

Vector fonts are useful for output devices that cannot reproduce bitmaps. For example, pen plotters use vector fonts. Vector font characters are drawn with lines instead of with patterns of dots. You can scale characters to any size or to any aspect ratio. The following fonts are the three vector fonts:

  • Modern
  • Roman
  • Script

How to work with fonts in Word 2007 and Word 2010

Free

To change the default font in Word 2007

  1. Create a new blank Word 2007 document.

  2. On the Home tab, click Font Dialog in the Font group.

  3. On the Font tab, select the options that you want to apply to the default font.

  4. Click Default.

  5. Click Yes to the following message:

When you create a new document that is based on the Normal template (Normal.dotm), the new document uses the font settings that you selected.

To print a sample of all the available fonts in Word 2007 and Word 2010

You can use a Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications macro to generate a list of the fonts that are available to Word. Additionally, the macro displays a sample of each font. After you have run the macro, you can print a Word document that contains the list and the samples. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

209205 Macro to generate list of available fonts in Word

To find fonts that are similar

  1. Click Start, click Run, type control fonts, and then click OK.
  2. On the View menu, click List Fonts By Similarity.
  3. In the List fonts by similarity to box, click the font that you want to compare with the other fonts on the computer.

Note

Panose font mapping information is stored with the font to describe the font's characteristics. For example, these characteristics may include serif or sans serif, normal, bold, or italic. If no Panose information is available, the font appears at the bottom of the list, and it does not appear in the List fonts by similarity to box.

How to troubleshoot font problems in Word 2007 and Word 2010

Before you start to troubleshoot font problems

Before you start to troubleshoot font problems in Word 2007 and Word 2010, review the following general topics:

  • Always make sure that you have installed the latest service pack for your version of Windows. Several font problems have been corrected in Windows service packs.

  • The exact number of TrueType fonts that you can install depends on the length of the TrueType font names and of the TrueType file names.

Basic steps to troubleshoot font problems

To troubleshoot font problems in Word 2007 and Word 2010, follow these basic steps:

  1. Make sure that you are using the correct printer driver.

    Your problem may be that the default printer driver in Windows is a generic/text only printer driver, an installed fax driver, or a similar driver. To change the printer driver that Microsoft Word uses, use one of the following methods.

    Important Do not select a generic/text only printer driver or an installed fax driver as your default printer in Windows.

    • In Word, click the Microsoft Office Button or File Tab (Word 2010), and then click Print. In the Namebox, click the name of an installed printer.
    • Click Start, and then click Printers and Faxes. Right-click an installed printer, and then click Set as Default Printer.
  2. Check to see whether the problem occurs in a new document.

    Create a new Word document that is based on the Normal.dotm template. To create a new document that is based on the global template, click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click New. Click Blank document, and then click Create.

    Based on what occurs in the new document, follow these steps:

    1. In the new document, try a different font. If you have no problems when you use a different font, the problem may be related to a specific font in Windows. Go to the next step to continue to troubleshoot.
    2. In the new document, use the font that you used in the original Word document. If the font problem no longer occurs in the new Word document, the original document is probably damaged.
    1. If the problem with a specific font persists in the new document, try to use the font in a new WordPad document. To create a WordPad document, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click WordPad.

      If the problem that you experienced in Word persists in the WordPad document, the font is probably damaged. You may have to delete and then reinstall the problem font in Windows.

      To delete a font, follow these steps:

      1. Click Start, click Run, type control fonts, and then click OK.

      2. Click the font that you want to remove.

        Note To select more than one font, press and hold down CTRL, and then click each font that you want to remove.

      3. On the Filemenu, click Delete.

      4. Click Yesto the following message: Are you sure you want to delete these fonts?

      To reinstall the font, follow these steps:

      1. Click Start, click Run, type control fonts, and then click OK.

      2. On the Filemenu, click Install New Font.

      3. In the Drives box, click the drive that contains the font that you want to install.

      4. In the Folderslist, double-click the folder that contains the font that you want to install.

      5. In the List of fonts list, click the font that you want to install, and then click OK.

        Note To install all the fonts that are listed, click Select All, and then click OK.

      For more information about how to delete a font or how to install a font in Windows, contact either Microsoft Windows Technical Support or the vendor that supplies the font.

      For more information about how to obtain help with Windows XP, click Start, click Help and Support Center, and then click Get support, or find information in Windows XP newsgroups.

  3. Check to see whether the problem occurs when you print the document at a lower resolution.

    You may have to print the document at a printer resolution that differs from the resolution at which the printer ordinarily prints. By default, most printers print at either 300 dpi (dots per inch) or at 600 dpi. To determine whether the printer resolution is the problem, follow these steps:

    1. Click Start, and then click Printers and Faxes.

    2. Right-click the installed printer driver, and then click Properties.

      Note The steps to change printer resolution differ depending on the printer driver. For more information, see the printer's documentation.

    3. Click the Graphics tab. In the Resolution list, click a lower resolution setting. For example, in the Resolution list, click 150 dots per inch.

    4. Click OK.

  4. Check to see whether the problem occurs when you print to a different printer.

    The installed printer driver may not be able to correctly print the font that you want. To determine whether this is the problem, specify a different printer as the default printer. Then, try to print the document.

    If the different printer correctly prints the Word document, the original installed printer driver may be damaged. Or, the original installed printer driver cannot print the document correctly. To correct these problems, use one of the following methods:

    • Remove and then reinstall the original printer driver.
    • Download and then install an updated printer driver for the printer.
    • Use a printer driver that is compatible with the printer.

Microsoft Word For Mac Font Problems Windows 10

Free microsoft word for mac

Additional resources

Microsoft provides a typography Web site that explains the benefits and the features of TrueType. TrueType is the world's most popular digital font format. The site helps people to use type in more innovative ways in media such as print, video, and the World Wide Web.

For more information, see Microsoft Typography.

Download Microsoft Word For Mac

The Microsoft Typography Web site includes the following resources:

Microsoft Word For Mac Font Problems 2017

  • Web Embedding Fonts Tool (WEFT)

    With WEFT you can create font objects that are linked to your Web pages. When font objects are linked to your Web pages, Internet Explorer users see the pages displayed with the font styles that are contained in the font objects.

  • Font Properties Extension

    Font Properties Extension adds several new property tabs to the default Properties dialog box. These tabs include the following information:

    • Font origination
    • Font copyright
    • The type sizes to which hinting and smoothing are applied
    • The code pages that are supported by extended character sets
  • ClearType Tuner PowerToy

    With ClearType Tuner PowerToy, you can enable and tune your ClearType settings in Control Panel.