01.22.08
Font Problems in Office 2008
A while back I managed to get a Beta copy of Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac. After installing it, I found that I was having a lot of font display problems, particularly on the web and in email: sometimes certain letters were missing; at other times, letters were present but overlapping to the point of being unreadable. I found a lot of other people having the same issue—turns out it happens to a lot of people who had a previous version of Office, because the installer updates the standard Microsoft fonts without cleaning up the old ones first.
What surprised me, however, is that the same problem still exists in the final version. What the hell was the beta for, if not to find and eliminate problems like this? Anyway, if you’ve recently installed Office 2008 and are having this problem, this should fix it:
- Open Font Book.
- Scroll through your fonts, looking for any fonts with a little black dot to the right of the name. Those are fonts with two different versions installed. Once you’ve found one, click the triangle to the left of the font name to expand the list.
- Click on one of the sub-entries and type Cmd-I to bring up the font info. You’ll note that there’s a new version and an old version. Right-click (or control-click) on the older one and select “Remove font.”
- Repeat the above for all duplicated fonts in the list.
- Reboot the computer.
Bhavesh Patel Said:
February 6, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Hey there,
just wanted to say thanks for writing this up! I haven’t restarted my computer yet, but I’m glad to know what needed to be done.
LOL on what the hell is a beta for…
Bhavesh
Rage Guy Said:
February 7, 2008 at 2:14 pm
This was an issue with the beta (Office 2008 for Mac Beta). It would happen because the user had any Office apps running when installing Office which would over-write some fonts. The problem should have gone away for the user after restarting the apps or the machine. The Office installer now suggests not having apps running during installation. If a person runs into the problem with the shipping or released version, they should restart their application(s) or restart their machine to get rid of this issue. Hope this helps!
Jim Said:
February 7, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Dude, that sounds like a serious pain in the rear. (How many fonts does MS Office install? I’m guessing: many!)
MS release cycle: alpha, beta, release, start fixing bugs, service pack #1, fix more bugs (including some introduced in SP1), SP2, upgrade!
Matt Said:
June 5, 2008 at 2:01 pm
This worked! Many thanks.
There were only about 15 fonts that I needed to remove.
I Hate MS!
Brian Ehni Said:
June 9, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Did not fix my issue, though I had duplicates. Deleted the dupes, and ran Onyx to clean the font caches, but my problem persists, and here is what’s happening. In Word2008 and Entourage2008 (the two apps I have checked), when I do a Select All and change the font to Geneva, I get Candara Bold. When I select Candara Bold, I get Abadi MT Condensed. In other words, I do not get the font I want, and have no clue which font to select to get the one I want!
Any ideas?
Brian Ehni Said:
June 11, 2009 at 8:45 am
Here’s the fix: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/884403
Specifically, the section: “If the Fonts menu does not appear in the WYSIWYG format after you remove the fonts from the Macintosh HD:System:Library:Fonts folder, remove the fonts that are in the Macintosh HD:Library:Fonts folder. The fonts that are in the Macintosh HD:Library:Fonts folder are installed by programs that are for use by all the users of the Macintosh computer.”
I had not realized my WYSIWYG had stopped working.