Word 2004 installed fonts options

[Mark Green]

Why does Word 2004 insist on installing fonts. Word X gave me the
option at least, so why does 2004 not have customize options where I
can choose not to have any fonts installed. I really do not wish to
have my users font folder cluttered up with a bunch of fonts I don't
need. I have Suitcase to manage all the fonts I want.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Mark,

I can't tell you what the logic was behind the installation of fonts in the
user folder. But all you have to do is delete them if you don't want them.

--
Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/WordMac/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

That would be rather unfortunate, I'm afraid. What with the change to
Unicode in Word, lots of the Microsoft fonts have been upgraded. They have
the same names as before, and as other fonts in your computer, but they're
different versions. In particular the four Unicode fonts - Times New Roman,
Trebuchet MS, Verdana and an Asian font - MS Mincho, I think - are
completely different and mach bigger than before : they have all the Unicode
glyphs. They will substitute for any fonts where such Unicode glyphs are
needed. Dump them at your peril.

Naturally Word needs fonts, and the correct place is in your user Fonts
folder. It's best just to leave things be. modern computers have immense
hard disks and the space taken up by the "clutter" of fonts is well worth
it. I'm sure there's a way to get them to work with Suitcase too.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP Entourage
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html>
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[Phillip M. Jones, CE.T.]

In taht case you need to open Fontbook in panther and turn off the version in OS9 so
that Word "only uses" the new versions.

That would be rather unfortunate, I'm afraid. What with the change to
Unicode in Word, lots of the Microsoft fonts have been upgraded. They have
the same names as before, and as other fonts in your computer, but they're
different versions. In particular the four Unicode fonts - Times New Roman,
Trebuchet MS, Verdana and an Asian font - MS Mincho, I think - are
completely different and mach bigger than before : they have all the Unicode
glyphs. They will substitute for any fonts where such Unicode glyphs are
needed. Dump them at your peril.

Naturally Word needs fonts, and the correct place is in your user Fonts
folder. It's best just to leave things be. modern computers have immense
hard disks and the space taken up by the "clutter" of fonts is well worth
it. I'm sure there's a way to get them to work with Suitcase too.

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[mark green]

Paul,
So then why not just write over the old versions of the fonts with the
new ones in the library font folder. Why keep adding more without
clearing out the old. Why do you say its better for fonts to be placed
in the users fonts folder rather then the libraries where the OS puts
all the fonts ?

The "clutter" I'm talking about is not referring to the amount of hard
disk these extra fonts take, I can handle that. The problem with having
hundreds of fonts in either the users or the libraries font folder is
that it causes programs startup times to slow down and causes lags in
font menus. This is why I'm trying to minimize the amount of fonts I
absolutely need in font folders and have suitcase manage the rest of
them. The problem with our "modern computers" are the slow hard drives
we have to wait on all the time to load these extras up.

Phillip,
I don't have OS 9 installed on my system, im running 10.3.3 only.

 

[Elliott Roper]

Paul,
So then why not just write over the old versions of the fonts with the
new ones in the library font folder. Why keep adding more without
clearing out the old. Why do you say its better for fonts to be placed
in the users fonts folder rather then the libraries where the OS puts
all the fonts ?

The "clutter" I'm talking about is not referring to the amount of hard
disk these extra fonts take, I can handle that. The problem with having
hundreds of fonts in either the users or the libraries font folder is
that it causes programs startup times to slow down and causes lags in
font menus. This is why I'm trying to minimize the amount of fonts I
absolutely need in font folders and have suitcase manage the rest of
them. The problem with our "modern computers" are the slow hard drives
we have to wait on all the time to load these extras up.

Phillip,
I don't have OS 9 installed on my system, im running 10.3.3 only.

In the circumstances, it was probably the best that Microsoft could do
without involving the user. It is still pretty sloppy. I don't think
they have got it into their heads that OS X is less of a toy than
(cough)

I'm back. Sorry about the coughing fit. Where was I?

Consider that for nearly everyone, the mac is a single user system.
~/Library/Fonts/ for the administrator user is a sensible spot to look
first for fonts. Overwriting the existing fonts there poses the
smallest possible risk that sloppily and silently overwriting other
applications' expected fonts would do damage.

I don't yet have 2004. When I do, I'll be copying those fonts to
/Library/Fonts where they will be available to me, my missus, and my
alter-ego - a non-admin account called 'gaol' where I cower while
inspecting trojans and the like.

If Microsoft's installer had placed those fonts directly in
/Library/Fonts then anybody with fonts of the same name in their
~/Library/Fonts would never have seen the new ones, and would by now be
muttering darkly that Unicode support is rubbish.

A tough call. They probably did the best thing to keep the majority
happy.

 

[John McGhie]

Mark:

I happen to agree with you that there should be only system font folders.
However, I have been persuaded that Unix admins consider fonts to be a user
resource, and as such, each user should have their own copy.

Replacing fonts is not an option on the Mac, because users "can" customise
them. On Windows, MS does replace/upgrade fonts, but that is not seen as
good citizenship on the Mac.

cheers

Paul,
So then why not just write over the old versions of the fonts with the
new ones in the library font folder. Why keep adding more without
clearing out the old. Why do you say its better for fonts to be placed
in the users fonts folder rather then the libraries where the OS puts
all the fonts ?

The "clutter" I'm talking about is not referring to the amount of hard
disk these extra fonts take, I can handle that. The problem with having
hundreds of fonts in either the users or the libraries font folder is
that it causes programs startup times to slow down and causes lags in
font menus. This is why I'm trying to minimize the amount of fonts I
absolutely need in font folders and have suitcase manage the rest of
them. The problem with our "modern computers" are the slow hard drives
we have to wait on all the time to load these extras up.

Phillip,
I don't have OS 9 installed on my system, im running 10.3.3 only.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

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Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Elliott,

Office 2004 *does* install its fonts (all 80 MB of them) in /Library/Fonts
and then copies them to ~/Library/Fonts so you actually end up with 160 MB
of installed fonts. That's why I advised Mark that he could safely delete
all these fonts from his user fonts folder.

Paul's point ­ that you would then lose the use of the expanded Unicode
fonts ­ is therefore not strictly speaking correct since those fonts would
still be available in the Office fonts folder. In practice, however, you
*could* still lose the use of those fonts: If, for instance, you have the
Unicode version of Verdana in Office fonts and the non-Unicode version of
Verdana in user fonts, the system will call the latter first. So
effectively, Paul is right.

--
Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/WordMac/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

Alas, before I tuned into Paul's points in this thread, I already had
trashed all the fonts Office 2004 installed in two different folders:
Applications/Office/Fonts and in user/~/Library/Fonts

I did so not because of the hard drive space, but primarily because of the
long time (and pain when one has tendonitis and carpal tunnel syndrome)
required to scroll and search for my favorite fonts in Entourage and Excel
(In Word, I can view my favorite five fonts in a customized toolbar I
created.)

€ 1. If I were to re-install all Office 2004 fonts, is there any way of
creating a customized favorite fonts toolbar in Entourage and Excel similar
to what I have in Word?

€2. If I were to re-install all Office 2004 fonts, would that create
problems in duplication of fonts the Operating System (now at 10.3.4) has
installed in Systems and Library?

€3. Can one go back in the installation process and selectively just
re-install fonts? How?

€4. Or should I consider the option of dragging them over from another hard
drive? (I duplicated my Panther partition to a backup drive after
installing Office 2004 but before I trashed the Office 2004 fonts in my
primary hard drive Applications/Office/Fonts and user/~/Library/Fonts
folders. )

Respectfully, Norm

 

[Elliott Roper]

Hi Elliott,

Office 2004 *does* install its fonts (all 80 MB of them) in /Library/Fonts
and then copies them to ~/Library/Fonts so you actually end up with 160 MB
of installed fonts. That's why I advised Mark that he could safely delete
all these fonts from his user fonts folder.

That's an OK thing to do. As long as the poor users did not have some
use for the old fonts that get over-written. It would not worry me
greataly, since the fonts with the same names would be Microsoft ones
from last time and they never broke anything.

Paul's point ­ that you would then lose the use of the expanded Unicode
fonts ­ is therefore not strictly speaking correct since those fonts would
still be available in the Office fonts folder. In practice, however, you
*could* still lose the use of those fonts: If, for instance, you have the
Unicode version of Verdana in Office fonts and the non-Unicode version of
Verdana in user fonts, the system will call the latter first. So
effectively, Paul is right.

Yep, I can't fault his logic there. It is still uncouth if Microsoft
stomp all over somebody's fonts without warning, but we are all used to
that by now. At least Mac OS X does not suffer from dll hell like older
versions of Windows did.

 

[Elliott Roper]

Alas, before I tuned into Paul's points in this thread, I already had
trashed all the fonts Office 2004 installed in two different folders:
Applications/Office/Fonts and in user/~/Library/Fonts

If you have Panther, you will find the Font Book application slightly
useful in sorting out the mess. I don't know how it plays with
suitcase. It will help you find duplicates. You can use it to disable
and re-enable whole collections of fonts at a single click

I seem to have only 167 fonts after I used it to tidy up the mess left
by some illicit Quarking ;-)

Finally, there would be those who would claim that you are not using
Word effectively if you find yourself frequently changing fonts. You
might be better for some classes of document, creating templates where
styles specify the fonts and other attributes of each part of your
work.

Then, if you are doing post-doc research on ransom note design....

;-)

 

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

Please respond to my four questions. Thanks.

€ 1. If I were to re-install all Office 2004 fonts, is there any way of
creating a customized favorite fonts toolbar in Entourage and Excel similar
to what I have in Word?

€2. If I were to re-install all Office 2004 fonts, would that create
problems in duplication of fonts the Operating System (now at 10.3.4) has
installed in Systems and Library?

€3. Can one go back in the installation process and selectively just
re-install fonts? How?

€4. Or should I consider the option of dragging them over from another hard
drive? (I duplicated my Panther partition to a backup drive after
installing Office 2004 but before I trashed the Office 2004 fonts in my
primary hard drive Applications/Office/Fonts and user/~/Library/Fonts
folders. )

Respectfully, Norm

 

[Elliott Roper]

Please respond to my four questions. Thanks. OK
€ 1. If I were to re-install all Office 2004 fonts, is there any way of
creating a customized favorite fonts toolbar in Entourage and Excel similar
to what I have in Word?

Dunno. Never use Entourage. Everything I ever do in Excel is in a
single font. It's for doing sums.
Font Book would sort of do that if you want to go to the bother.

€2. If I were to re-install all Office 2004 fonts, would that create
problems in duplication of fonts the Operating System (now at 10.3.4) has
installed in Systems and Library?

Yes and no. You won't be able to change anything in /System/Library
without an axe. There will be duplications, but they won't hurt unless
there are different fonts with identical names (unicode and not
f'rinstance) and maybe not even then. Paul and Beth explained it better
than I did.

€3. Can one go back in the installation process and selectively just
re-install fonts? How? I think so, never tried
€4. Or should I consider the option of dragging them over from another hard
drive? (I duplicated my Panther partition to a backup drive after
installing Office 2004 but before I trashed the Office 2004 fonts in my
primary hard drive Applications/Office/Fonts and user/~/Library/Fonts
folders. )

It won't hurt. Use font book to clean up the resulting mess.

That's why I did not give you a point by point before. ;-)

 

[mark green]

In the circumstances, it was probably the best that Microsoft could do
without involving the user. It is still pretty sloppy. I don't think
they have got it into their heads that OS X is less of a toy than
(cough)

I'm back. Sorry about the coughing fit. Where was I?

Consider that for nearly everyone, the mac is a single user system.
~/Library/Fonts/ for the administrator user is a sensible spot to look
first for fonts. Overwriting the existing fonts there poses the
smallest possible risk that sloppily and silently overwriting other
applications' expected fonts would do damage.

I don't yet have 2004. When I do, I'll be copying those fonts to
/Library/Fonts where they will be available to me, my missus, and my
alter-ego - a non-admin account called 'gaol' where I cower while
inspecting trojans and the like.

If Microsoft's installer had placed those fonts directly in
/Library/Fonts then anybody with fonts of the same name in their
~/Library/Fonts would never have seen the new ones, and would by now be
muttering darkly that Unicode support is rubbish.

A tough call. They probably did the best thing to keep the majority
happy.

So then If Word Installs these fonts in HD/Applications/Microsoft
Office 2004/Office/Fonts as well as the the users font folder and the
systems font folder then I should be able to remove the fonts from the
user folder as well as the systems and Word can still access them from
its own program folder. This would be what I want to do if I'm
understanding all this correctly because I only want word to see these
fonts. I don't need Illustrator and Indesign to see them cause they are
useless to me and will only cause these programs to slow down. Some of
these fonts are still .ttf Why arn't they .otf ?

 

[Elliott Roper]

On 2004-05-26 17:14:11 -0400, Elliott Roper <[email protected]> said:

So then If Word Installs these fonts in HD/Applications/Microsoft
Office 2004/Office/Fonts as well as the the users font folder and the
systems font folder then I should be able to remove the fonts from the
user folder as well as the systems and Word can still access them from
its own program folder. This would be what I want to do if I'm
understanding all this correctly because I only want word to see these
fonts. I don't need Illustrator and Indesign to see them cause they are
useless to me and will only cause these programs to slow down. Some of
these fonts are still .ttf Why arn't they .otf ?

From what the others have said, yes. I never knew that MS would look in
its own font folder, so I never did delete them from /Library/Fonts. It
would be a simple test for you to make. Hide them somewhere, restart
Office and see what breaks.

Why still .ttf? Who knows? maybe like me, BIlly's MacBU cannot affort
to shell out for .otf versions of fonts they already have. ;-)

There is an article at
http://www.apple.com/macosx/pdf/Panther_Fonts_TB_10082003.pdf
describing font book and otherwise making broad brush statements about
fonts in OS X. You will probably know all that already.
This earlier and much longer article
http://www.apple.com/pro/archive/creative/fonts/usingfontsinmacosx_l2503
2b.pdf
describes how OS X snuffles out fonts from all its hiding places,
neglecting of course to mention Microsoft Office's little hoard.

hope that's helpful.
E

 

[mark green]

From what the others have said, yes. I never knew that MS would look in
its own font folder, so I never did delete them from /Library/Fonts. It
would be a simple test for you to make. Hide them somewhere, restart
Office and see what breaks.

Why still .ttf? Who knows? maybe like me, BIlly's MacBU cannot affort
to shell out for .otf versions of fonts they already have. ;-)

There is an article at
http://www.apple.com/macosx/pdf/Panther_Fonts_TB_10082003.pdf
describing font book and otherwise making broad brush statements about
fonts in OS X. You will probably know all that already.
This earlier and much longer article
http://www.apple.com/pro/archive/creative/fonts/usingfontsinmacosx_l2503
2b.pdf
describes how OS X snuffles out fonts from all its hiding places,
neglecting of course to mention Microsoft Office's little hoard.

hope that's helpful.
E

Interesting, thanks for the info Elliott

 

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

Please respond to my four questions. Thanks.

€ 1. If I were to re-install all Office 2004 fonts, is there any way of
creating a customized favorite fonts toolbar in Entourage and Excel similar
to what I have in Word?

€2. If I were to re-install all Office 2004 fonts, would that create
problems in duplication of fonts the Operating System (now at 10.3.4) has
installed in Systems and Library?

€3. Can one go back in the installation process and selectively just
re-install fonts? How?

€4. Or should I consider the option of dragging them over from another hard
drive? (I duplicated my Panther partition to a backup drive after
installing Office 2004 but before I trashed the Office 2004 fonts in my
primary hard drive Applications/Office/Fonts and user/~/Library/Fonts
folders. )

Respectfully, Norm

 

[Beth Rosengard]

So then If Word Installs these fonts in HD/Applications/Microsoft Office
2004/Office/Fonts as well as the the users font folder and the systems font
folder then I should be able to remove the fonts from the user folder as well
as the systems and Word can still access them from its own program folder.
This would be what I want to do if I'm understanding all this correctly
because I only want word to see these fonts. I don't need Illustrator and
Indesign to see them cause they are useless to me and will only cause these
programs to slow down. Some of these fonts are still .ttf Why arn't they .otf
?

Wait. Did I misspeak? That would be par for the course lately.

The Microsoft Office fonts are installed in the Local fonts folder and in
the User fonts folder, not the System font folder.

Apple says about the System font folder: "Mac OS X requires fonts in this
folder for system use and displays. They should not be altered or removed."
See here:
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106417&sessionID=anonymous|2
5136641&kbhost=kbase.info.apple.com%3a80%2f>

If you remove the fonts from your User folder but leave them in your Local
folder (/Library/Fonts), you should be fine. But don't mess with the fonts
installed in your System fonts folder (/System/Library/Fonts).

--
Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/WordMac/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

Yes and no. You won't be able to change anything in /System/Library
without an axe. There will be duplications, but they won't hurt unless
there are different fonts with identical names (unicode and not
f'rinstance) and maybe not even then. Paul and Beth explained it better
than I did.

The ONLY fonts in /System/Library/Fonts are system fonts Apple has
installed. DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING IN SYSTEM FOLDER. Thus is not your father's
OS 7 System Folder. This is OS X. LEAVE IT ALONE. (Period.)

There are more than enough places for installing fonts, or anything else.
/Library/Fonts will override /System/Library/Fonts and ~/Library/Fonts will
override /Library/Fonts. Use either. If you're the only user on your
computer, it's quite right that you don't need both. (I can't see the harm
myself, but never mind.) Use whichever is more convenient, and remove the
others.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP Entourage
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Entourage you are using - **2004**, X
or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions otherwise.

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

So then If Word Installs these fonts in HD/Applications/Microsoft
Office 2004/Office/Fonts as well as the the users font folder and the
systems font folder then I should be able to remove the fonts from the
user folder as well as the systems and Word can still access them from
its own program folder. This would be what I want to do if I'm
understanding all this correctly because I only want word to see these
fonts. I don't need Illustrator and Indesign to see them cause they are
useless to me and will only cause these programs to slow down. Some of
these fonts are still .ttf Why arn't they .otf ?

I don't know this for certain, but I believe that Office only uses the fonts
in its own Office folder for "stocking" your user and Library fonts folders.
I haven't tested removing all of the latter to see what happens next. As far
as I was aware, when Word tells you it's "optimizing fonts" on First Run,
it's actually making copies of the fonts in its own Office/Fonts and moving
the copies to ~/Library/Fonts and/or /Library/Fonts.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP Entourage
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/toc.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

Please "Reply To Newsgroup" to reply to this message. Emails will be
ignored.

PLEASE always state which version of Entourage you are using - **2004**, X
or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions otherwise.