Bulleted text without bullets

[Roger Schlemmer]

OS X 10.6.3
Office 2008
Word 12.2.4

Created a Word document, added bulleted text, saved it, printed it, looked
fine.

Closed the document and Word.

Reopened the same document an hour later and the bullets had changed to
small open boxes.
Printed it, no bullets, no boxes.
Tried to change the boxes back to bullets, couldn¹t do it.
Could change the boxes to numbers or letters but nothing else would work.

Created a new document, bullets would not work in that either, every attempt
resulted in empty boxes.
Any ideas on why the bullets and symbols stopped appearing in bulleted
lists?

 

[Phillip Jones, C.E.T.]

Go to Bullets an Numbering and see if the boxes are set rather than bullets.

if so change back to bullets and immediately save the document. Then
quit Word. Now open and document and see what looks like.

 

[CyberTaz]

It sounds like you have font issues that are preventing certain characters
from displaying. The 'boxes' represent the space occupied by the missing
characters on screen but they do not print. First, though, if the document
was NOT created on the same Mac where you're now viewing/printing it the
following suggestions will not help -- the current system lacks the font
that was use to produce the bullet characters on the other system. If you
ARE working on the same Mac on which the document was produced & haven't
deleted any fonts...

Quit all apps then launch Apple's Font Book. Run its Resolve Duplicates &
Validate Fonts routines & do as necessary. Then shut down the Mac for a few
minutes. See if conditions improve in the document on next launch.

If not, reply with specific Office & OS X update info, what fonts you've
used & what your Keyboard Layout (System Preferences) is, as well as exactly
how you applied the bulleting.

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

 

[Phillip Jones, C.E.T.]

Another thought:

use a Repair Utility such as cocktail (for OSX.6 and above) or for X.5
and lower AppleJack and remove all Font caches then restart Computer.

I say do this rather than remove just MS Font caches, because it could
be more than just MS's Font Caches That are the problem.

They could try MS Font cache files that would be:
Office Font Cache (12) do find file from Finder type in : Office Font
Cache (12)

when located move to Trash (with MS Office Closed) empty the open Word.

if using Office2004 then substitute (11) instead of (12).

 

[Roger Schlemmer]

Bob Jones

OS X 10.6.3
Office 2008
Word 12.2.4

The document was created on the same computer that will not now permit
bulleted text. The document has never left the desk top.

Opened Font Book, did the routines, etc., shut down, tried again, same
problem.

Went to Format, Bullets and Numbering where there are 8 choices.
Every one of them will display correctly in my Word document, all except the
bullet, which shows as a tiny empty box.

Just for fun, I went into Safe Mode, held down Shift when starting.
Opened the document and was able to use the bullets. (I'm now thinking that
the document was created in the Safe Mode, but why can't I create bulleted
text in the regular mode? Tried creating a new document and adding bulleted
text but only got the empty boxes. All the other symbols work though.)

Restarted the computer, opened the document and could not get bullets to
work. Tried the with the Formatting Palette and the menu bar under Format.
Still empty boxes instead of bullets.

Using Cambria font, but tried with Arial, Futura, Times New Roman, and they
didn't work either.

US, US Extended keyboard

 

[CyberTaz]

While no Office apps are running try deleting the Office Font Cache (12)
file located in: User/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008. That may
correct it, but It sounds more like it may well be a corrupt Preferences
file... If that isn't the fix see the procedure here for testing it:

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

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

 

[Roger Schlemmer]

Used Maintenance (version 1.3.2) and deleted Font Caches, no improvement.

 

[CyberTaz]

Deleting the caches usually does no good if you haven't cleared up the font
issues that caused them to corrupt. The caches are automatically regenerated
but the newly created caches just inherit the same pollution.

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

 

[Roger Schlemmer]

Ok, I only tried deleting that cache file because it was one of your
suggestions.
Tried the verify fonts routine, disabled duplicates in Font Book, & deleted
the suggested cache file all with no success.
I have no idea how to clear up the "font issues that caused them to corrupt"
so I'll just live without bulleted text. Not the end of the world.
Thank you for your assistance.

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Roger;

There's no reason to live without bullets, it's just a matter of determining
the cause of the problem. That can be dicey, but once identified the fix
should be easy. Did you try the Preferences approach suggested Monday
evening? I don't see anything one way or the other:

While no Office apps are running try deleting the Office Font Cache (12)
file located in: User/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008. That may
correct it, but It sounds more like it may well be a corrupt Preferences
file... If that isn't the fix see the procedure here for testing it:

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

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

If that still doesn't do it there are some other possibilities... It's just
a 'one step at a time' process of elimination

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

 

[Roger Schlemmer]

Bob,

I did move these files:
microsoft.office.plist
com.microsoft.word.plist
Microsoft Component Preferences
Office font cache (12)
Microsoft office settings (10)
Word settings (10)

Onto the desktop and tried Word again.
Still the little empty boxes, no bullets.

I did notice that there are these files in preferences:

Excel settings (10)
Excel toolbars (10)
Entourage settings (10)

Are these let overs from Office X also?
And should they be removed, not that this would help the bullet problem any?

I still don't understand, among millions of others about computers, why Word
will produce bullets when started up in Safe Mode but not in the normal
mode.

Roger

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Roger:

Anything ending in (10) should have no bearing at all on your problem, you
are using "(12)".

Delete ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008 (the whole folder!)
and Normal.dotm. Unless you have moved it, it should be in
~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/


Your bullet formats are stored in the Normal template and selected by
pointers in the Office 2008 preferences.

Cheers

Bob,

I did move these files:
microsoft.office.plist
com.microsoft.word.plist
Microsoft Component Preferences
Office font cache (12)
Microsoft office settings (10)
Word settings (10)

Onto the desktop and tried Word again.
Still the little empty boxes, no bullets.

I did notice that there are these files in preferences:

Excel settings (10)
Excel toolbars (10)
Entourage settings (10)

Are these let overs from Office X also?
And should they be removed, not that this would help the bullet problem any?

I still don't understand, among millions of others about computers, why Word
will produce bullets when started up in Safe Mode but not in the normal
mode.

Roger

--

The email below is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless I ask you to; or 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 | mailto:[email protected]