Yet another - Word 2004 crashes on startup

C

Chris McFarling

A user pointed out to me today that his Word 2004 was not working. Turns out
it has nver worked since his computer (a G5) was wiped and everything
reinstalled a couple months ago. At that time OS X 10.3.9 was installed as
well as Office 2004. After installing Office, I'll usually launch Word or
Excel to make Office go through it's first-run sequence. Apparently I ran
Excel on this machine so I was unaware that Word would not launch.

Today I thoroughly looked into the problem. When you launch word, the splash
screen shows up, you see some information update within the splash screen
and then it unexpectedly quits. It's similar to what many other users have
experienced based on posts I've seen here. I've tried everything but
rewriting Word myself I think, but nothing fixes it.

- Repaired permissions (several times)
- Checked for Add-in conflicts
- Checked for corrupt/duplicate fonts both manually and with FontDoctor
- Applied all updates
- Trashed prefs (many times)
- Uninstalled Office (using Remove Office tool) multiple times

Sometimes an error would show up in the console log after Word had crashed.

Microsoft Error Reporting[437] CFLog (21): Cannot find executable for
CFBundle 0x1427a0 </System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/liberty.framework> (not
loaded)

And sometimes nothing shows up. I also uninstalled Office 2004 and then
installed Office X. The same thing happed, Word would quit on startup but
other Office programs worked fine.


After doing all of this on this users computer, I tried installing Office
2004 on a different computer (a G4). After installing, I launched Word. As
it launched, the AutoUpdate window came up as well. I quit out of
AutoUpdate. The Word splash screen was still up and it appeared to be hung.
Control+clicking on the Word icon in the Dock showed that Word was Not
Responding. I waited a few minutes and nothing happened, so I had to force
quit it. From that point on, all attempts to launch Word resulted in it
unexpectedly quitting, just like on the other mac. I went through all the
same troubleshooting procedures again on this machine and never had any
luck. In addition, I unistalled Office and tried installing under a
different user account. No luck again.

So now I have at least one G5 and one G4, both running 10.3.9, that Word
will not run on. I also have at least one G4, setup nearly identically to
the one described above, on which Word runs fine.

So logic points to something specific to these machines. The OS has been
installed from a disk image so the OS is identicall on each machine.
Besides, no other programs have any problems at all, it's just Word.

Any ideas where to look next?
 
B

Beth Rosengard

Hi Chris,

I have absolutely no idea what you might have missed. I'm escalating this
to MSFT. If/when I get a response, I will post back here. Since it can
take a few days or more, check back here every once in a while.

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>



A user pointed out to me today that his Word 2004 was not working. Turns out
it has nver worked since his computer (a G5) was wiped and everything
reinstalled a couple months ago. At that time OS X 10.3.9 was installed as
well as Office 2004. After installing Office, I'll usually launch Word or
Excel to make Office go through it's first-run sequence. Apparently I ran
Excel on this machine so I was unaware that Word would not launch.

Today I thoroughly looked into the problem. When you launch word, the splash
screen shows up, you see some information update within the splash screen
and then it unexpectedly quits. It's similar to what many other users have
experienced based on posts I've seen here. I've tried everything but
rewriting Word myself I think, but nothing fixes it.

- Repaired permissions (several times)
- Checked for Add-in conflicts
- Checked for corrupt/duplicate fonts both manually and with FontDoctor
- Applied all updates
- Trashed prefs (many times)
- Uninstalled Office (using Remove Office tool) multiple times

Sometimes an error would show up in the console log after Word had crashed.

Microsoft Error Reporting[437] CFLog (21): Cannot find executable for
CFBundle 0x1427a0 </System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/liberty.framework> (not
loaded)

And sometimes nothing shows up. I also uninstalled Office 2004 and then
installed Office X. The same thing happed, Word would quit on startup but
other Office programs worked fine.


After doing all of this on this users computer, I tried installing Office
2004 on a different computer (a G4). After installing, I launched Word. As
it launched, the AutoUpdate window came up as well. I quit out of
AutoUpdate. The Word splash screen was still up and it appeared to be hung.
Control+clicking on the Word icon in the Dock showed that Word was Not
Responding. I waited a few minutes and nothing happened, so I had to force
quit it. From that point on, all attempts to launch Word resulted in it
unexpectedly quitting, just like on the other mac. I went through all the
same troubleshooting procedures again on this machine and never had any
luck. In addition, I unistalled Office and tried installing under a
different user account. No luck again.

So now I have at least one G5 and one G4, both running 10.3.9, that Word
will not run on. I also have at least one G4, setup nearly identically to
the one described above, on which Word runs fine.

So logic points to something specific to these machines. The OS has been
installed from a disk image so the OS is identicall on each machine.
Besides, no other programs have any problems at all, it's just Word.

Any ideas where to look next?
Click to expand...
 
C

Corentin Cras-Méneur

Hi Chris,
So logic points to something specific to these machines. The OS has been
installed from a disk image so the OS is identicall on each machine.
Besides, no other programs have any problems at all, it's just Word.
Click to expand...


Any chance you have isntalled third party QuickTime codecs ??
Does the same problem occur if you launch the app by double-clicking a
word document instead of double-clicking the icon of the app ?
Anything special about your setup (user account reloacted on another
drive or even a network drive for instance) ??


I wonder what that "liberty.framework" is... THe only references I found
that were mentioning it seemed to imply it was part of the developer
tools. HAve you installed them ?? It's weird because I did install them
and I sure don;t have the liberty.framework.

I searched with google and found other people with a similar problem on
the ShirtPocket discussion site.
Here is what they recommended:
The actual process isn't clear.

Dave had me go into ~/Library/Preferences and rename the Microsoft
folder to Microsoft.saved.

Then log out and back in... see what happens.

If you're getting the Database Daemon alert that I was, you just need
to remove all copies of Database Daemon in your Login items (under
Account preferences).

Hope this helps. I think it will.
Click to expand...

Though you told us to trashed the prefs many time... The problem could
reside in a file open in memory of the daemon though. You could try
something somehow like what they suggest:
- move the ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft folder to the desktop.
- log out and back in (this should really quit all background process)
- try launching Word again. Any luck ??

Corentin
 
C

Corentin Cras-Méneur

Corentin Cras-Méneur said:
You could try
something somehow like what they suggest:
Click to expand...

One more thing... Could you also move your Normal template out of
wherever you keep it and launch Word again ?? The corruption could
reside there as well.

I found more references to somehow similar problems but they all seemed
related to a corrupted Word document. Never a crash when you just launch
the app.

Corentin
 
J

John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]

Hi Chris:

Since we're in "Wild outrageous guess" territory where clutching at straws
seems like a safe and secure option, let's play with this a bit.

On my 10.3.9 system, I have
HDD/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/liberty.framework

Within liberty.framework I have:
/Resources (alias)
/Versions (folder)

The Resources alias points into /Versions/A/Resources

Within Versions we have the "A" folder and an alias named Current that
points to /A/Resources (getting a bit circular here...)

Finally you will find two little files:
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/liberty.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Inf
o-macos.plist

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/liberty.framework/Versions/A/Resources/ver
sion.plist

The contents of the files are:

Info-macos.plist...


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist SYSTEM
"file://localhost/System/Library/DTDs/PropertyList.dtd">
<plist version="0.9">
<dict>
<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
<string>com.apple.liberty</string>
<key>CFBundleName</key>
<string>liberty</string>
<key>CFBundleShortVersionString</key>
<string>46</string>
<key>NSExecutable</key>
<string>liberty</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Version.plist...

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>BuildVersion</key>
<string>101</string>
<key>CFBundleShortVersionString</key>
<string>46</string>
<key>ProjectName</key>
<string>gdb</string>
<key>SourceVersion</key>
<string>2920000</string>
</dict>
</plist>

You now know far more about this than I do. If you can figure out what
those files do, or whether it's safe to add them to your test system, good
luck to you :)

Hope this helps

A user pointed out to me today that his Word 2004 was not working. Turns out
it has nver worked since his computer (a G5) was wiped and everything
reinstalled a couple months ago. At that time OS X 10.3.9 was installed as
well as Office 2004. After installing Office, I'll usually launch Word or
Excel to make Office go through it's first-run sequence. Apparently I ran
Excel on this machine so I was unaware that Word would not launch.

Today I thoroughly looked into the problem. When you launch word, the splash
screen shows up, you see some information update within the splash screen
and then it unexpectedly quits. It's similar to what many other users have
experienced based on posts I've seen here. I've tried everything but
rewriting Word myself I think, but nothing fixes it.

- Repaired permissions (several times)
- Checked for Add-in conflicts
- Checked for corrupt/duplicate fonts both manually and with FontDoctor
- Applied all updates
- Trashed prefs (many times)
- Uninstalled Office (using Remove Office tool) multiple times

Sometimes an error would show up in the console log after Word had crashed.

Microsoft Error Reporting[437] CFLog (21): Cannot find executable for
CFBundle 0x1427a0 </System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/liberty.framework> (not
loaded)

And sometimes nothing shows up. I also uninstalled Office 2004 and then
installed Office X. The same thing happed, Word would quit on startup but
other Office programs worked fine.


After doing all of this on this users computer, I tried installing Office
2004 on a different computer (a G4). After installing, I launched Word. As
it launched, the AutoUpdate window came up as well. I quit out of
AutoUpdate. The Word splash screen was still up and it appeared to be hung.
Control+clicking on the Word icon in the Dock showed that Word was Not
Responding. I waited a few minutes and nothing happened, so I had to force
quit it. From that point on, all attempts to launch Word resulted in it
unexpectedly quitting, just like on the other mac. I went through all the
same troubleshooting procedures again on this machine and never had any
luck. In addition, I unistalled Office and tried installing under a
different user account. No luck again.

So now I have at least one G5 and one G4, both running 10.3.9, that Word
will not run on. I also have at least one G4, setup nearly identically to
the one described above, on which Word runs fine.

So logic points to something specific to these machines. The OS has been
installed from a disk image so the OS is identicall on each machine.
Besides, no other programs have any problems at all, it's just Word.

Any ideas where to look next?
Click to expand...

--

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

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410
 
M

matt neuburg

Oh, come on. He didn't say Word couldn't find the plist, he said it
couldn't find the executable. Actually it isn't even Word that is
looking for this framework; it is the error reporter, i.e. the problem
arises AFTER the crash. So it's irrelevant. (Besides, I have no such
framework, in Tiger, and Word runs fine there.)

It might have been more helpful if the OP had shown us the crash log.
But then again, it might not. In any case we have to carry on without
that sort of help.

My suggestion is to uninstall Office using the included uninstaller. Be
sure to remove everything; do not attempt to uninstall "by hand", since
you won't find everything. Use the uninstaller application. Uninstall
all parts of all versions.

Also clean out the extra fonts installed by Office in the user Fonts
folder. And check carefully with Font Book for possible font conflicts
or other problems. Run Font Finagler, restart the computer.

Now install Office 2004. Do NOT start it up.

Now manually download and install the Office updates from Microsoft, to
bring Office up to date! In other words, believe what AutoUpdate is
trying to tell you. Part of the problem is that the first update fixes
AutoUpdate so that it will run! Without the update, AutoUpdate itself
just hangs.

*Now* try to start up Word. Be patient! It takes a long time the first
time.

m.

==========

John McGhie said:
Hi Chris:

Since we're in "Wild outrageous guess" territory where clutching at straws
seems like a safe and secure option, let's play with this a bit.

On my 10.3.9 system, I have
HDD/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/liberty.framework

Within liberty.framework I have:
/Resources (alias)
/Versions (folder)

The Resources alias points into /Versions/A/Resources

Within Versions we have the "A" folder and an alias named Current that
points to /A/Resources (getting a bit circular here...)

Finally you will find two little files:
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/liberty.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Inf
o-macos.plist

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/liberty.framework/Versions/A/Resources/ver
sion.plist

The contents of the files are:

Info-macos.plist...


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist SYSTEM
"file://localhost/System/Library/DTDs/PropertyList.dtd">
<plist version="0.9">
<dict>
<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
<string>com.apple.liberty</string>
<key>CFBundleName</key>
<string>liberty</string>
<key>CFBundleShortVersionString</key>
<string>46</string>
<key>NSExecutable</key>
<string>liberty</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Version.plist...

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>BuildVersion</key>
<string>101</string>
<key>CFBundleShortVersionString</key>
<string>46</string>
<key>ProjectName</key>
<string>gdb</string>
<key>SourceVersion</key>
<string>2920000</string>
</dict>
</plist>

You now know far more about this than I do. If you can figure out what
those files do, or whether it's safe to add them to your test system, good
luck to you :)

Hope this helps

A user pointed out to me today that his Word 2004 was not working. Turns out
it has nver worked since his computer (a G5) was wiped and everything
reinstalled a couple months ago. At that time OS X 10.3.9 was installed as
well as Office 2004. After installing Office, I'll usually launch Word or
Excel to make Office go through it's first-run sequence. Apparently I ran
Excel on this machine so I was unaware that Word would not launch.

Today I thoroughly looked into the problem. When you launch word, the splash
screen shows up, you see some information update within the splash screen
and then it unexpectedly quits. It's similar to what many other users have
experienced based on posts I've seen here. I've tried everything but
rewriting Word myself I think, but nothing fixes it.

- Repaired permissions (several times)
- Checked for Add-in conflicts
- Checked for corrupt/duplicate fonts both manually and with FontDoctor
- Applied all updates
- Trashed prefs (many times)
- Uninstalled Office (using Remove Office tool) multiple times

Sometimes an error would show up in the console log after Word had crashed.

Microsoft Error Reporting[437] CFLog (21): Cannot find executable for
CFBundle 0x1427a0 </System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/liberty.framework> (not
loaded)

And sometimes nothing shows up. I also uninstalled Office 2004 and then
installed Office X. The same thing happed, Word would quit on startup but
other Office programs worked fine.


After doing all of this on this users computer, I tried installing Office
2004 on a different computer (a G4). After installing, I launched Word. As
it launched, the AutoUpdate window came up as well. I quit out of
AutoUpdate. The Word splash screen was still up and it appeared to be hung.
Control+clicking on the Word icon in the Dock showed that Word was Not
Responding. I waited a few minutes and nothing happened, so I had to force
quit it. From that point on, all attempts to launch Word resulted in it
unexpectedly quitting, just like on the other mac. I went through all the
same troubleshooting procedures again on this machine and never had any
luck. In addition, I unistalled Office and tried installing under a
different user account. No luck again.

So now I have at least one G5 and one G4, both running 10.3.9, that Word
will not run on. I also have at least one G4, setup nearly identically to
the one described above, on which Word runs fine.

So logic points to something specific to these machines. The OS has been
installed from a disk image so the OS is identicall on each machine.
Besides, no other programs have any problems at all, it's just Word.

Any ideas where to look next?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
B

Beth Rosengard

Hi Matt,

My suggestion is to uninstall Office using the included uninstaller. Be
sure to remove everything; do not attempt to uninstall "by hand", since
you won't find everything. Use the uninstaller application. Uninstall
all parts of all versions.

Also clean out the extra fonts installed by Office in the user Fonts
folder. And check carefully with Font Book for possible font conflicts
or other problems. Run Font Finagler, restart the computer.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure you read Chris's original post? Here's what he reports he has
done so far:
Now install Office 2004. Do NOT start it up.
Click to expand...

Why is this? Just curious, but I can't see why causing the apps to
initialize before updating would make a difference. In fact, when a new
updater is released, you don't do a clean reinstall of Office every time, do
you?

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>
 
J

John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]

Yeah, you're right... I read that as "Microsoft Error reporting was
'reporting that'..." *Word* couldn't find the Framework.

But if it's simply trying to report that AutoUpdate has hung, then what you
say makes much more sense :)


Oh, come on. He didn't say Word couldn't find the plist, he said it
couldn't find the executable. Actually it isn't even Word that is
looking for this framework; it is the error reporter, i.e. the problem
arises AFTER the crash. So it's irrelevant. (Besides, I have no such
framework, in Tiger, and Word runs fine there.)

It might have been more helpful if the OP had shown us the crash log.
But then again, it might not. In any case we have to carry on without
that sort of help.

My suggestion is to uninstall Office using the included uninstaller. Be
sure to remove everything; do not attempt to uninstall "by hand", since
you won't find everything. Use the uninstaller application. Uninstall
all parts of all versions.

Also clean out the extra fonts installed by Office in the user Fonts
folder. And check carefully with Font Book for possible font conflicts
or other problems. Run Font Finagler, restart the computer.

Now install Office 2004. Do NOT start it up.

Now manually download and install the Office updates from Microsoft, to
bring Office up to date! In other words, believe what AutoUpdate is
trying to tell you. Part of the problem is that the first update fixes
AutoUpdate so that it will run! Without the update, AutoUpdate itself
just hangs.

*Now* try to start up Word. Be patient! It takes a long time the first
time.

m.

==========

John McGhie said:
Hi Chris:

Since we're in "Wild outrageous guess" territory where clutching at straws
seems like a safe and secure option, let's play with this a bit.

On my 10.3.9 system, I have
HDD/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/liberty.framework

Within liberty.framework I have:
/Resources (alias)
/Versions (folder)

The Resources alias points into /Versions/A/Resources

Within Versions we have the "A" folder and an alias named Current that
points to /A/Resources (getting a bit circular here...)

Finally you will find two little files:
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/liberty.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Inf
o-macos.plist

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/liberty.framework/Versions/A/Resources/ver
sion.plist

The contents of the files are:

Info-macos.plist...


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist SYSTEM
"file://localhost/System/Library/DTDs/PropertyList.dtd">
<plist version="0.9">
<dict>
<key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
<string>com.apple.liberty</string>
<key>CFBundleName</key>
<string>liberty</string>
<key>CFBundleShortVersionString</key>
<string>46</string>
<key>NSExecutable</key>
<string>liberty</string>
</dict>
</plist>

Version.plist...

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>BuildVersion</key>
<string>101</string>
<key>CFBundleShortVersionString</key>
<string>46</string>
<key>ProjectName</key>
<string>gdb</string>
<key>SourceVersion</key>
<string>2920000</string>
</dict>
</plist>

You now know far more about this than I do. If you can figure out what
those files do, or whether it's safe to add them to your test system, good
luck to you :)

Hope this helps

A user pointed out to me today that his Word 2004 was not working. Turns out
it has nver worked since his computer (a G5) was wiped and everything
reinstalled a couple months ago. At that time OS X 10.3.9 was installed as
well as Office 2004. After installing Office, I'll usually launch Word or
Excel to make Office go through it's first-run sequence. Apparently I ran
Excel on this machine so I was unaware that Word would not launch.

Today I thoroughly looked into the problem. When you launch word, the splash
screen shows up, you see some information update within the splash screen
and then it unexpectedly quits. It's similar to what many other users have
experienced based on posts I've seen here. I've tried everything but
rewriting Word myself I think, but nothing fixes it.

- Repaired permissions (several times)
- Checked for Add-in conflicts
- Checked for corrupt/duplicate fonts both manually and with FontDoctor
- Applied all updates
- Trashed prefs (many times)
- Uninstalled Office (using Remove Office tool) multiple times

Sometimes an error would show up in the console log after Word had crashed.

Microsoft Error Reporting[437] CFLog (21): Cannot find executable for
CFBundle 0x1427a0 </System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/liberty.framework> (not
loaded)

And sometimes nothing shows up. I also uninstalled Office 2004 and then
installed Office X. The same thing happed, Word would quit on startup but
other Office programs worked fine.


After doing all of this on this users computer, I tried installing Office
2004 on a different computer (a G4). After installing, I launched Word. As
it launched, the AutoUpdate window came up as well. I quit out of
AutoUpdate. The Word splash screen was still up and it appeared to be hung.
Control+clicking on the Word icon in the Dock showed that Word was Not
Responding. I waited a few minutes and nothing happened, so I had to force
quit it. From that point on, all attempts to launch Word resulted in it
unexpectedly quitting, just like on the other mac. I went through all the
same troubleshooting procedures again on this machine and never had any
luck. In addition, I unistalled Office and tried installing under a
different user account. No luck again.

So now I have at least one G5 and one G4, both running 10.3.9, that Word
will not run on. I also have at least one G4, setup nearly identically to
the one described above, on which Word runs fine.

So logic points to something specific to these machines. The OS has been
installed from a disk image so the OS is identicall on each machine.
Besides, no other programs have any problems at all, it's just Word.

Any ideas where to look next?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

--

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

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410
 
C

Chris McFarling

I got it to work finally, strange fix though. It is definitely font related.
All of the machines I've tested so far are in a prepress environment. As
such, I set them up with a minimum set of fonts. That's done to try to
alleviate any font conflicts that may occur between system fonts and various
fonts that we must load for each job that is submitted by our customers.

The only fonts I leave on the system after an install are
/System/Library/Fonts/
Geneva.dfont
Helvetica.dfont
Keyboard.dfont
LastResort.dfont
LucidaGrande.dfont
Monaco.dfont

Throughout my testing, I have kept the Office-installed fonts on the system
as well (~/Library/Fonts/). With this setup, after installing Office, Word
would crash on startup. Now, I thought I did (but perhaps I didn't), try
launching Powerpoint during my testing. I know I launched Excel and
Entourage just fine. Today I started fresh (I had uninstalled Office with
the Remove Office tool and rebooted). I installed Office 2004, applied the
11.2.0 and then the 11.2.1 updates. I then launched Excel first to initiate
the first-run stuff. I quit Excel and then launched Word. Again, it crashed.
I then launched Powerpoint. It started just fine but gave me a dialog box
stating that some fonts were not available. There were 5 entries in the
list, 2 of which were readable and 3 that were unreadable, as if the names
were in an asian font that was not available. The 2 readable name were:

MS PGothic
Hiragino Maru Gothic Pro

Oddly, MS PGothic was indeed in the ~/Library/Fonts/ folder, so it should
have been available. I quit Powerpoint and then copied the disabled system
fonts back into the /System/Library/Fonts/ folder. That included:

Apple LiGothic Medium.dfont
AppleGothic.dfont
AquaKanaBold.otf
AquaKanaRegular.otf
Courier.dfont
Geeza Pro Bold.ttf
Geeza Pro.ttf
Hei.dfont
Osaka.dfont
OsakaMono.dfont
Symbol.dfont
Times.dfont
ZapfDingbats.dfont
Hiragino Maru Gothic Pro W4.otf
Hiragino Mincho Pro W3.otf
Hiragino Mincho Pro W6.otf
Hiragino Kaku Gothic Pro W3.otf
Hiragino Kaku Gothic Pro W6.otf
Hiragino Kaku Gothic Std W8.otf
STHeiti Light.ttf
STHeiti Regular.ttf

I then launched Powerpoint and it started with no missing font message. I
quit PP and launched Word. Low and behold it started. So one of the system
fonts listed above having not been in the system folder was causing Word to
crash, right? Not exactly. I quit Word and disabled all fonts on the entire
system except
Geneva.dfont
Helvetica.dfont
Keyboard.dfont
LastResort.dfont
LucidaGrande.dfont
Monaco.dfont

I launched Word after that and it was fine. I then deleted the Office Font
Cache (11) file (thinking that it may cause Word to crash if Word had to
recreate it) and it launched fine still. I then removed Office completely,
rebooted and reinstalled exactly the same way as mentioned above. Before
launching anything else, I launched Word and it started fine.

Powerpoint apparently did something that allowed Word to get over whatever
problem it was having. Now it appears to be permanantly OK. I still have
only the 6 fonts listed above active on the system and Word is running fine.
So I still don't know exactly what the underlying problem is but I have a
workaround.

I will say that MS should improve the error trapping code in Word so that it
can be more descriptive if it crashes from a font issue.
 
J

John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]

Hi Chris:

OK, you've nailed it :)

Yes, you disabled the fonts Word needs to draw its user interface :)

And yes, Microsoft is indeed in the process of being more rigorous about
testing for the required fonts when starting, and issuing a comprehensible
error message when it doesn't find them.

In the meantime, what you have done is entered the required font names into
the MS Font Cache, which is part of Office. The MS Font Cache is rebuilt
from the System Font Cache.

So Word now "thinks" the fonts are available. When you now take those fonts
away again, Word will for the most part "work", substituting any needed
fonts with the closest one it can find. Some features will crash it if they
are used: I can't tell you which ones.

I spent some time looking for the list of *required* fonts for Microsoft
Office. I am sure we have published it in here, but I can't find it at the
moment. I know that bad things will happen if Verdana is not enabled, and
Tahoma will be sorely missed. Times New Roman and Arial need to be there.
There are two Asian fonts required, but I can't tell you which ones.

Each of the Microsoft applications will check for its required fonts and
startup, and re-install them from the Microsoft Office/Office/Fonts folder
if they are not available to the user.

I've been trying to get a definitive list for some time...

Cheers



I got it to work finally, strange fix though. It is definitely font related.
All of the machines I've tested so far are in a prepress environment. As
such, I set them up with a minimum set of fonts. That's done to try to
alleviate any font conflicts that may occur between system fonts and various
fonts that we must load for each job that is submitted by our customers.

The only fonts I leave on the system after an install are
/System/Library/Fonts/
Geneva.dfont
Helvetica.dfont
Keyboard.dfont
LastResort.dfont
LucidaGrande.dfont
Monaco.dfont

Throughout my testing, I have kept the Office-installed fonts on the system
as well (~/Library/Fonts/). With this setup, after installing Office, Word
would crash on startup. Now, I thought I did (but perhaps I didn't), try
launching Powerpoint during my testing. I know I launched Excel and
Entourage just fine. Today I started fresh (I had uninstalled Office with
the Remove Office tool and rebooted). I installed Office 2004, applied the
11.2.0 and then the 11.2.1 updates. I then launched Excel first to initiate
the first-run stuff. I quit Excel and then launched Word. Again, it crashed.
I then launched Powerpoint. It started just fine but gave me a dialog box
stating that some fonts were not available. There were 5 entries in the
list, 2 of which were readable and 3 that were unreadable, as if the names
were in an asian font that was not available. The 2 readable name were:

MS PGothic
Hiragino Maru Gothic Pro

Oddly, MS PGothic was indeed in the ~/Library/Fonts/ folder, so it should
have been available. I quit Powerpoint and then copied the disabled system
fonts back into the /System/Library/Fonts/ folder. That included:

Apple LiGothic Medium.dfont
AppleGothic.dfont
AquaKanaBold.otf
AquaKanaRegular.otf
Courier.dfont
Geeza Pro Bold.ttf
Geeza Pro.ttf
Hei.dfont
Osaka.dfont
OsakaMono.dfont
Symbol.dfont
Times.dfont
ZapfDingbats.dfont
Hiragino Maru Gothic Pro W4.otf
Hiragino Mincho Pro W3.otf
Hiragino Mincho Pro W6.otf
Hiragino Kaku Gothic Pro W3.otf
Hiragino Kaku Gothic Pro W6.otf
Hiragino Kaku Gothic Std W8.otf
STHeiti Light.ttf
STHeiti Regular.ttf

I then launched Powerpoint and it started with no missing font message. I
quit PP and launched Word. Low and behold it started. So one of the system
fonts listed above having not been in the system folder was causing Word to
crash, right? Not exactly. I quit Word and disabled all fonts on the entire
system except
Geneva.dfont
Helvetica.dfont
Keyboard.dfont
LastResort.dfont
LucidaGrande.dfont
Monaco.dfont

I launched Word after that and it was fine. I then deleted the Office Font
Cache (11) file (thinking that it may cause Word to crash if Word had to
recreate it) and it launched fine still. I then removed Office completely,
rebooted and reinstalled exactly the same way as mentioned above. Before
launching anything else, I launched Word and it started fine.

Powerpoint apparently did something that allowed Word to get over whatever
problem it was having. Now it appears to be permanantly OK. I still have
only the 6 fonts listed above active on the system and Word is running fine.
So I still don't know exactly what the underlying problem is but I have a
workaround.

I will say that MS should improve the error trapping code in Word so that it
can be more descriptive if it crashes from a font issue.
Click to expand...

--

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

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410
 
C

Chris McFarling

In the meantime, what you have done is entered the required font names
into
the MS Font Cache, which is part of Office. The MS Font Cache is rebuilt
from the System Font Cache.

So Word now "thinks" the fonts are available. When you now take those
fonts
away again, Word will for the most part "work", substituting any needed
fonts with the closest one it can find. Some features will crash it if
they
are used: I can't tell you which ones.
Click to expand...


So if I delete the Office Font Cache *and* run Font Cache Cleaner to clear
out the system font cache (and load only the 6 fonts noted before), would
you assume Word would crash? I tried that and it started up just fine.
 
B

Beth Rosengard

I spent some time looking for the list of *required* fonts for Microsoft
Office. I am sure we have published it in here, but I can't find it at the
moment.
Click to expand...

Michel Bintener posted the following some time back. (Michel, if you're
listening, what was your source for this?)

==========
By the way, you have to be careful when you're disabling fonts, as Office
2004 requires a number of them to be activated in order to function
properly. So make sure you don't disable the following fonts:

Arial
Batang
Gulim
Hiragino Kaku Gothic Pro W3
Lucida Grande
MS PMincho
MS Gothic
MS Mincho
MS Pgothic
MT Extra
PmingLiu
Simsun
Symbol
Times New Roman
Verdana
Wingding

Hope this was helpful.
Michel
=========

--
***Please always reply to the newsgroup!***

Beth Rosengard
MacOffice MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>
 
M

Michel Bintener

Michel Bintener posted the following some time back. (Michel, if you're
listening, what was your source for this?)

==========
By the way, you have to be careful when you're disabling fonts, as Office
2004 requires a number of them to be activated in order to function
properly. So make sure you don't disable the following fonts:

Arial
Batang
Gulim
Hiragino Kaku Gothic Pro W3
Lucida Grande
MS PMincho
MS Gothic
MS Mincho
MS Pgothic
MT Extra
PmingLiu
Simsun
Symbol
Times New Roman
Verdana
Wingding

Hope this was helpful.
Michel
=========
Click to expand...

Hi Beth,
this list was posted by some Microsoft employee a couple of months ago. I
did not save the original message, so I can't look it up; I only copied the
list into a new note.

Michel
 
B

Beth Rosengard

Okay. Thanks, Michel.

Beth


Hi Beth,
this list was posted by some Microsoft employee a couple of months ago. I
did not save the original message, so I can't look it up; I only copied the
list into a new note.

Michel
Click to expand...
 

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