Franklin Gothic issues in 10.5 with InDesign/Office 2008/ Universal Type Server

[dhiggs]

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

Hello,

I'm experiencing an issue with the way that the Franklin Gothic font is recognised and how it works on 10.5.x and programs such as InDesign CS3 5.0.2 and Universal Type Server/Client 1.0.

- The Franklin Gothic font installed by Office in the /Library/Fonts/Microsoft folder is reported by the OS and by Office as a Windows TT font. InDesign and Universal Type Server recognise the font as Open Type TT. I'm not sure why this is the case but it brings me to a conflict I found
- The Franklin Gothic font installed by Office causes an issue with an existing font I use. ITC Franklin Gothic (Adobe foundry version). It causes the 'Book' typeface to become unavailable in InDesign. When removing the Microsoft version, it resolves the issue. However both fonts are seen by a Mac OS X program like TextEdit, without conflicts.
- It seems the microsoft version is actually of the ITC foundry, but it isn't called ITC by name. ITC Franklin Gothic has variants by Linotype and Adobe foundries.

The only solution I can see at the moment is removing the version installed by Office 2008 to resolve issues with the ITC Franklin Gothic i use. I've actually purchased a Linotype version, a newer Adobe version, and my existing old Adobe version, and they're all conflicting with the Office installed version.

If I remove the Office installed version, will this cause any issues with any Office 2008 apps?

Fonts aren't usually my area, so hopefully i've provided enough of the right information. Would appreciate any help on this matter.

 

[Elliott Roper]

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

The only solution I can see at the moment is removing the version installed
by Office 2008 to resolve issues with the ITC Franklin Gothic i use. I've
actually purchased a Linotype version, a newer Adobe version, and my existing
old Adobe version, and they're all conflicting with the Office installed
version.

If I remove the Office installed version, will this cause any issues with any
Office 2008 apps?

Fonts aren't usually my area, so hopefully i've provided enough of the right
information. Would appreciate any help on this matter.

You can fling the MS font without fear. At worst, some (e-mail)
recipient, lacking the ITC version, might make a poor substitution, but
that is a standard risk with using Mac Office in a PC dominated world.
Even a 'good' substitution might cause layout changes, but that comes
with the territory.
Office install's font vandalism is a long running sore, apparently much
improved in 2008.
My technique was to pre-vandalise any document destined for the dark
side. I gave up on anything but styles using TNR and Arial.
If I ever get enough courage to use 2008, I'd be happy to use the new
fonts that start with C. Some of those are quite elegant. One of the
few true improvements over 2004.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

You can fling the MS font without fear.

There are some fonts you should not remove because Office depends upon
them, but I doubt that Franklin Gothic is one of them (random guess
based on intuition). There is a list of required fonts for Office 2004
here, but we have not yet been able to get the list for Office 2008:
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Disable-Fonts.html

 

[Elliott Roper]

There are some fonts you should not remove because Office depends upon
them, but I doubt that Franklin Gothic is one of them (random guess
based on intuition). There is a list of required fonts for Office 2004
here, but we have not yet been able to get the list for Office 2008:
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Disable-Fonts.html

Thanks Daiya. I did sound rather high handed. I think your intuition is
sound, as is Beth's article. She /has/ been busy. Her point about
taking care to delete the right duplicate is worth repeating.

I'd add that the Office installation process tends to hurl fonts into
/Library/Fonts, which messes with users who place them in their own per
user location ~/Library/Fonts/ This is usually benign, since
~/Library/Fonts should have precedence for that user. It get ugly when
duplicates abound and the user fettles collections in Font Book.

The problems are worst with fonts like Franklin and Garamond, with so
many variants from so many foundries. Another variant getting plonked
into one's fragile collection is not always welcome. Especially when
the cuckoo's egg lacks the swash and old-style numerals supported by
those applications that *can* deal with them.

 

[dhiggs]

Thanks for all your suggestions. I have decided to delete any fonts installed by Office 2008 that are duplicates of the Mac OS X system. As of version 10.5.4, they seem to be older than the one's installed by Mac OS X from what I can see.

I have been told that when creating a new user and then loading an office program, the fonts are installed again. I cannot see where these are being installed. Is there a way to disable this function, as I am preparing an SOE for office use and don't want further complications when setting up new users.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Thanks for all your suggestions. I have decided to delete any fonts installed by Office 2008 that are duplicates of the Mac OS X system. As of version 10.5.4, they seem to be older than the one's installed by Mac OS X from what I can see.

I'm no font expert, but I would not delete any fonts listed as required
on that link I provided, even though it is for Office 2004 and this is
Office 2008.

I have been told that when creating a new user and then loading an office program, the fonts are installed again. I cannot see where these are being installed. Is there a way to disable this function, as I am preparing an SOE for office use and don't want further complications when setting up new users.

That was the case with Office 2004. Office 2008 does not do that
anymore, it just loads fonts in harddrive/library/fonts/microsoft. It
also moves the fonts that Office 2004 used to dump into
user/library/fonts into user/library/fonts disabled, as newer copies get
installed for the system.

 

[dhiggs]

good to hear about office 2008 treating new user accounts differently.

will start another thread on the topic of fonts installed by office 2008 and 10.5