Greek Letters / Symbols now not displaying in Word

[jman995x]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

Hello,

Here's my situation:

Awhile back I typed out a 138 page technical document with alot of Greek letters and symbols in it. I recently just opened it back up to review it and everything is correctly formatted, and all of the information is still there....however, the Greek letters and symbols are all missing (or I should say that they aren't being displayed, but instead there is a small box that looks like a place-marker for where the letters/symbols used to be (and probably still are, just not displayed)).

Somewhere between when I wrote the paper and re-opened it, I installed like 2,000 fonts on my computer. Having done so, I've looked in my drop-down menu in Word and noticed that "Greek" is no longer there. However, if I type "Greek" into the font box in the word Toolbar, then I can start typing Greek letters and symbols (however, the rest of my document still won't show the previously typed Greek letters and symbols).

I finally reinstalled MS Word 2008 and all of it's accompanying fonts, to no avail.

Any thoughts as to why this happened?

My only other thought (solution-wise), was to go to font-book and remove ALL of my fonts, then reinstall "Office Fonts" so that I have the basics again. Is this doable?

Anybody got an opinion one way or the other on this dilemma and/or my proposed solution?

Thanks,

Justin

 

[John McGhie]

Well, let's see now...

Each font you install takes some RAM while the computer is running. If you
install 2,000 fonts on a computer, you can actually run out of RAM, so the
computer starts shedding fonts to make room for programs.

More likely: You have updated the font you used with a font of the same
name that is encoded using a different system. The codes in the document
are now pointing to places in the font where there are no characters.

A computer file does not contain "characters", it contains "numbers". Each
of the numbers is the number of a row in a table in the font you used. If
all goes well, that row contains the formula for a character, and that's
what you see printed on the paper. But if you change an old-style font
using the MacRoman character set, for a new one using the Unicode character
set, the numbers in the document may point at rows in the table that are
blank in the new font.

That's what has happened to you, I think.

You need to re-insert those characters using a font you have now.

Cheers

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

Hello,

Here's my situation:

Awhile back I typed out a 138 page technical document with alot of Greek
letters and symbols in it. I recently just opened it back up to review it and
everything is correctly formatted, and all of the information is still
there....however, the Greek letters and symbols are all missing (or I should
say that they aren't being displayed, but instead there is a small box that
looks like a place-marker for where the letters/symbols used to be (and
probably still are, just not displayed)).

Somewhere between when I wrote the paper and re-opened it, I installed like
2,000 fonts on my computer. Having done so, I've looked in my drop-down menu
in Word and noticed that "Greek" is no longer there. However, if I type
"Greek" into the font box in the word Toolbar, then I can start typing Greek
letters and symbols (however, the rest of my document still won't show the
previously typed Greek letters and symbols).

I finally reinstalled MS Word 2008 and all of it's accompanying fonts, to no
avail.

Any thoughts as to why this happened?

My only other thought (solution-wise), was to go to font-book and remove ALL
of my fonts, then reinstall "Office Fonts" so that I have the basics again. Is
this doable?

Anybody got an opinion one way or the other on this dilemma and/or my proposed
solution?

Thanks,

Justin

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]

 

[astridita]

This did the job for me with Greek Symbols from Times New Roman:

The one that did it for me was Version 3.05 Typeface by Monotype Corporation form April 2004.

I believe it is the one that you also find in Microsoft Office (2004!) - Office - Fonts.

Put the font into either [your hard disk] - Library - Fonts
or Users - [your user name] - Library - Fonts
else it won't be found by the system. No restart required.

Or, if you have a machine where it still works:

- Get the machine where Word displayed the characters correctly
- Quit Word
- Search for all Times New Roman fonts on your machine (I had 25 in all kinds of locations)
- Eliminate one (put into trash, don't empty)
- Open the Word document, see whether it still displays correctly
- If it doesn't then you found the crucial Times New Roman version
- If it still does put the font back to where it was, and start all over with quitting Word.
- Once you found the one you can copy it into the Fonts folder.

 

[John McGhie]

In Snow Leopard, the Times New Roman font should be Version 5.01.3x from
Monotype Corporation (supplied by Apple) and it should exist only in
/Library/Fonts

On my system, ~/Library/Fonts is empty. I am the main user on this system,
and I intend for the fonts to be useable in ANY user ID, so I keep them all
in the main system fonts folder.

No sense in confusing things unless you want different fonts for different
users on the system.

Users of Office 2008 will find a "Microsoft" folder in the system fonts
folder. The system will first load anything in the main system fonts
folder, then check to see if there is anything in the Microsoft folder that
it hasn't got. That prevents the system trying to load two copies of
anything

Cheers

This did the job for me with Greek Symbols from Times New Roman:

The one that did it for me was Version 3.05 Typeface by Monotype Corporation
form April 2004.

I believe it is the one that you also find in Microsoft Office (2004!) -
Office - Fonts.

Put the font into either [your hard disk] - Library - Fonts
or Users - [your user name] - Library - Fonts
else it won't be found by the system. No restart required.

Or, if you have a machine where it still works:

- Get the machine where Word displayed the characters correctly
- Quit Word
- Search for all Times New Roman fonts on your machine (I had 25 in all kinds
of locations)
- Eliminate one (put into trash, don't empty)
- Open the Word document, see whether it still displays correctly
- If it doesn't then you found the crucial Times New Roman version
- If it still does put the font back to where it was, and start all over with
quitting Word.
- Once you found the one you can copy it into the Fonts folder.

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]

 

[lmstransk]

I am having a similar problem with my fonts in Word 2008 on my Mac (OSx
10.5.8).

All of my fonts displayed correctly in Word 2004, the dropdown menu of font
choices showed my fonts in WYSIWYG format and I had no problems.

Once I installed Office 08, most of my fonts have disappeared. Like the
previous poster, I can type in the name of the font at the top of the font
list and make it appear...but it won't show up as one of the choices on the
drop down list.

I have tried re-installing. I have tried deleting the Microsoft Office 2008
prefs folder and re-booting.

Can anyone help me out?? I'm really frustrated and wondering if I should go
back to 2004.

 

[John McGhie]

Use FontBook to resolve all your duplicate fonts (make sure you keep the
most recent of each...)

Then do a power-off reboot to regenerate the font caches.

That should bring it right.

Cheers

I am having a similar problem with my fonts in Word 2008 on my Mac (OSx
10.5.8).

All of my fonts displayed correctly in Word 2004, the dropdown menu of font
choices showed my fonts in WYSIWYG format and I had no problems.

Once I installed Office 08, most of my fonts have disappeared. Like the
previous poster, I can type in the name of the font at the top of the font
list and make it appear...but it won't show up as one of the choices on the
drop down list.

I have tried re-installing. I have tried deleting the Microsoft Office 2008
prefs folder and re-booting.

Can anyone help me out?? I'm really frustrated and wondering if I should go
back to 2004.

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]