fonts not in office menu, but in all other apps!

[chocolatemandan]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I work for a large corp that has it's own custom TTF font families. The fonts are made my monotype, so I start with the assumption they know what they are doing in the creation of the fonts.

The fonts are installed in the HD:Library:Fonts folder. I did have them also in the user library folder, but have removed those since they are duplicates and made no difference to this issue.

The issue is that some of the fonts show in the office menus (PPT for example), but not all the weights are shown. So I may have installed the entire range of weights from Bold, regular, light, but only regular is available in the menus.

If I check in other applications, such as Keynote, Photoshop etc., they are all shown properly - so this only is an issue in Office (it is the same in PPT, Word, and Excel).

I have checked the Apple Font book, and all looks normal there. I alos cleared the font cache as well - no change.

I also created a PPT file from Keynote (export to PPT) with all the fonts, and they all show up properly in PowerPoint, but I just do not have the option of selecting them directly in the font menus!

Any ideas what this could be?

Thanks
Dan

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Some apps, especially the ones that do more sophisticated font handling, only allow
you to bold text in a given font if the bold version of that font is actually
installed.

Others, including most MS ones I know of, will use the bold font if it's available
but fake the bolding if not. For that reason, they don't display the bold version
as a distinct font on font menus.

The adventurous can figure out what's really going on by printing to a PostScript
file and plowing through it to work out what font is called for.

But I'm pretty sure you can take it on faith that if your company font includes a
bolded version and the bold font is installed, simply bolding the text will call
the correct font into use.

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I work for a large corp that has it's own custom TTF font families. The fonts are

made my monotype, so I start with the assumption they know what they are doing in
the creation of the fonts.

The fonts are installed in the HD:Library:Fonts folder. I did have them also in

the user library folder, but have removed those since they are duplicates and made
no difference to this issue.

The issue is that some of the fonts show in the office menus (PPT for example),

but not all the weights are shown. So I may have installed the entire range of
weights from Bold, regular, light, but only regular is available in the menus.

If I check in other applications, such as Keynote, Photoshop etc., they are all

shown properly - so this only is an issue in Office (it is the same in PPT, Word,
and Excel).

I have checked the Apple Font book, and all looks normal there. I alos cleared

the font cache as well - no change.

I also created a PPT file from Keynote (export to PPT) with all the fonts, and

they all show up properly in PowerPoint, but I just do not have the option of
selecting them directly in the font menus!

 

[chocolatemandan]

Hi Steve,

Not exactly professional level typography, but you are probably right about the non-standard font handling by MS.

However, the issue is not just being able to select "bold" if it were bold that was not showing up in the menu. The issue is that the "light" version (one of many examples) simply is not there at all!

Also, while other font families are grouped together in a pull out menu, these are inconsistently grouped.So, some wights are grouped, some are not, and some simply are not available!

Problem not solved. Thanks for trying.
Dan

 

[chocolatemandan]

Just to add some more detail, this is a full list of the fonts and where they are visible, or not visible. Note that in some cases there is a difference between what is in the toolbar, pop out menu, and toolbox menu!

Note: all of these font names are preceded by the company name, i.e. Microsoft Large Bold.ttf, but I have removed the corp name as it is not relevant. Multi is for Multiscript.

Font | in toolbar | in pop-out menu | toolbox menu
Large Bold.ttf | Y | Y | Y

Large Multi Bold v1.0.ttf | Y | Y | Y
Large Multi BoldItalic v1.0.ttf | N | N | N
Large Multi Italic v1.0.ttf | Y | Y | Y
Large Multi v1.0.ttf | Y | Y | Y
Large MultiLight Italic v1.0.ttf | N | N | N
Large MultiLight v1.0.ttf | Y (but not grouped with the family)| N | N

Sans Wide Bold v3.1.ttf | Y | Y | Y
Sans Wide BolIta v3.1.ttf | Y | Y | Y
Sans Wide Italic v3.1.ttf | Y | Y | Y
Sans Wide v3.1.ttf | Y | Y | Y

Sans Wide Multi Bold v1.0.ttf| N | N | N
Sans Wide Multi BolIta v1.0.ttf | N | N | N
Sans Wide Multi Italic v1.0.ttf | N | N | N
Sans Wide Multi v1.0.ttf | Y | Y | Y

Standard Multi Bold Italic v1.1.ttf | N | N | N
Standard Multi Bold v2.1.ttf | Y | Y | Y
Standard Multi Italic v1.1.ttf | N | N | N
Standard Multi Light Italic v1.1.ttf | N | N | N
Standard Multi Light v1.1.ttf | N | N | N
Standard Multi v2.1.ttf | Y | Y | Y

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Dan;

A lot rides on how the font is actually designed. If the font was expressly
created for the Windows environment, for example, just installing it on a
Mac there's no guarantee that all variants will be available. Since the
variants are available in other apps that may not be the case here, and Word
does have the capability of recognizing them in "most" cases. For example, I
have Adobe Arno Pro installed & all 29 variants are available in Word, PPT &
Excel.

In some cases, though, a font may not appear in the font menu exactly where
you might think it should. I'm not sure exactly why that is but it does
happen. Make sure you scour the list all the way to the bottom just in case
that's happening for you.

I don't know 'which' font cache you cleared but if not this one you might
try this to see if things improve:

While none of the Office apps are running go to:

UserName/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008

Remove the file called "Office Font Cache (12)", then shut down the Mac.
Wait at least 60 seconds before you power up & see if there's any change.

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

 

[chocolatemandan]

Just double checked the font cache clearing, and that made no difference.

I also just realised that it is not showing up WYSIWYG as well....

Looking at the font info in Font Book on the mac, I can see there does seem to be inconsistency in the way the font is named. If I understand correctly, it is not the name that is important to the document/application using the correct font, but the font ID number. However, in terms of grouping correctly, if the names are not consistent, then I am guessing that may be an issue. So here is an example that suggests this may be the problem (in office apps, since all other apps seem to correctly identify these and group these!).

PostScript name CorpLargeMultiscriptLight
Full name Corp Large MultiscriptLight
Family Corp Large Multiscript
Style Light

PostScript name CorpLargeMultiscript
Full name Corp Large Multiscript
Family Corp Large Multiscript
Style Regular

PostScript name CorpLargeMultiscript-Italic
Full name Corp Large Multiscript Italic
Family Corp Large Multiscript
Style Italic

PostScript name CorpLargeMultiscriptLight-Italic
Full name Corp Large MultiscriptLight Italic
Family Corp Large Multiscript
Style Light Italic

PostScript name CorpLargeMultiscript-Bold
Full name Corp Large Multiscript Bold
Family Corp Large Multiscript
Style Bold

PostScript name CorpLargeMultiscript-BoldItalic
Full name Corp Large Multiscript Bold Italic
Family Corp Large Multiscript
Style Bold Italic

Since the problems in this particular family were with Light, Bold Italic, and Italic, I wonder if the issue in Office is that the spaces and hyphens in the name are the issue? However, that does not explain why some are simply not there at all! It is all so inconsistent!

It is especially irritating that every other application handles all these fonts as expected (all visible, all grouped together, all WYSIWYG). As far as I can see, this is an MS issue. It is unlikely that I am going to get the names changed a massive corporations font family that is used by over 100k employees. Imagine, every computer being updated due to an issue in MS office on the mac, used by less than 1% of the companies employees? Highly unlikely.

 

[chocolatemandan]

Before someone suggests this, I did try to change the font file names to be more consistent (adding spaces between words, and using whole words rather than abbreviations) but that had no effect. I assume that is because of it relates to the internal file information and names, such as the PostScript names.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Hi Steve,

Not exactly professional level typography, but you are probably right

about the non-standard font handling by MS.

There's a reason they call it MS Office. The tools are intended for
office users, not graphics/typesetting professionals.

However, the issue is not just being able to select "bold" if it were

bold that was not showing up in the menu. The issue is that the "light"
version (one of many examples) simply is not there at all!

Who created the font? ISTR reading about similar problems some time back
with fonts from manufacturers that didn't address the problem created by
apps (like PPT) that only recognize font families that come in sets of
four: Regular, Bold, Italic, Bold-Italic. For the fonts to work properly,
they'd have to have a different internal name. For example:

Arial could have the Fab Four versions above but any other weights would
need to be named e.g. Arial Light, Arial Obese, Arial RidiculouslyBold or
whatever.

The cause might lie elsewhere but I'd look into this first. The font
manufacturer might be able to give you more info. If not, there are apps
that can read and I think even manipulate font names etc.

Also, while other font families are grouped together in a pull out menu,

these are inconsistently grouped.So, some wights are grouped, some are
not, and some simply are not available!

This might again be a naming issue, but I'm not sure.

 

[chocolatemandan]

Hi Steve,

There's a reason they call it MS Office. The tools are intended for
office users, not graphics/typesetting professionals

I hope you are joking. This has nothing to do with typographic excellence, just coding excellence and user expectations of features working! It may be Monotype's naming issue (they are one of the biggest font houses in the world), or it may be that MS simply do not follow the conventions that other applications seem to be able to follow regarding font recognition. Or, it may simply be a bug they are not aware of.

This is about achieving expected behaviour within all applications. Again, these fonts appear in the menus grouped properly on Windows PCs in non-office apps, and in MS office apps. These same fonts also show correctly on the Mac in all non-office applications, BUT they do not show up correctly in MS office 2008 on the mac. I am slightly more inclined to think it is Mac MS Office 2008 issue (but it may be made visible by a bad naming issue in the fonts).

If there is someone on this list from MS who wants to check into this, I am happy to send the fonts in question.

Cheers
Dan

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Hi Steve,


I hope you are joking. This has nothing to do with typographic excellence, just coding

excellence and user expectations of features working!

Only slightly joking. But it does have everything to do with the expectations of the users;
but with Office apps, they're addressing an entirely different set of users than, for
example, Adobe's graphics/dtp apps. Office level users don't want or expect to mess about
with fonts. They simply want to be able to choose a font and then, if they wish, make it
bold, italic or whatever, without regard for whether there's a true bold version of the font
installed or not. If the true bold version isn't available, Office apps fake it (or perhaps
it's the OS that does the dirty deed, but it's the app that allows the user to choose Bold
when no bold font is available, so the guilt lies there).
or it may be that MS simply do not follow the conventions that other applications seem to be
able to follow regarding font recognition. Or, it may simply be a bug they are not aware of.

These are Monotype fonts, so yes, I'd expect them to follow standards.

This is about achieving expected behaviour within all applications. Again, these fonts

appear in the menus grouped properly on Windows PCs in non-office apps, and in MS office
apps. These same fonts also show correctly on the Mac in all non-office applications, BUT
they do not show up correctly in MS office 2008 on the mac. I am slightly more inclined to
think it is Mac MS Office 2008 issue (but it may be made visible by a bad naming issue in the
fonts).

I'd agree.

That it works one way in some apps and another way in Office apps is probably by design
rather than a font-level problem.

If there is someone on this list from MS who wants to check into this, I am happy to send

the fonts in question.

I'm not from MS but could report it to them; unfortunately, I don't have Office 2008. Jim,
Bob? Interested? If you need someone to thump it from the Windows side, I'd be happy to
pitch in.

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

This whole discussion is way above my head. I offer this link hoping
that it might give some insight regarding Microsoft's ideas about
typography:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/default.mspx

-Jim

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

This whole discussion is way above my head. I offer this link hoping
that it might give some insight regarding Microsoft's ideas about
typography:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/default.mspx

And the font properties tool here:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/FreeToolsOverview.mspx

will probably be useful for interpreting the entrails of fonts to learn
what might be different about one that works and one that doesn't.

Windows-only, but since you mentioned you have done some tests on the
Win side, Dan, it'd be worth checking out.