Font problems in Office 2008 and iLife 2009

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Font problems in Office 2008 and iLife 2009

I've been using a Mac for years, and have never had so many problems before. I'm am currently running Mac OS X 10.6.2 on a 2006 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Macbook. I recently did the 6.2 update last night, as I was hoping it would solve problems that I had been having. It actually made it worse.

Whenever I try to start up either Word or Powerpoint in Office 2008, the "Optimizing font performance" text pops up on the Word/Powerpoint startup window, taking around 30 seconds to a minute to fully load the program, while the beachball spins away (I have 600+ fonts, but it still shouldn't do this). I've Googled this problem before, and came up with the solution to uncheck "WYSIWYG font and style menus" in the Word preferences menu. However, with the update last night, it's gone back to the "Optimizing font performance" text every time I start up the program.
I've even gone as far to clean up the font cache in Onyx, repair permissions in Disk Utility, repair any problem fonts, fix duplicates of fonts, and even go into the Office Library folders and delete the font caches by hand (as recommended by Microsoft).
Also, I've just started having problems with iLife, including Pages. Whenever I try to open a new blank document or saved document, Pages freezes up, and I have to force quit. When I look into my processes (using iStat Nano), the font cache is running at 90% or higher.

I'm very confused and not sure what to do next besides backing up my data and reinstalling Snow Leopard altogether. A HUGE thanks to anyone that can help me!

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Nov 12, 2009 4:59 PM

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Answer 1

K T

Level 7

23,895 points

Nov 12, 2009 5:13 PM in response to westcot16

I have 600+ fonts, but it still shouldn't do this

Based on what? 5 years of collecting fonts and NOT working with Sl before....? Seems like you think 600 fonts are trivial for all cases.

You haven't used 'it' before....everything is anecdotal at this point.

Create another user (without bells, whistles & 550 casual fonts) and try Pages from there. If it behaves you've got right cause to deal with whatever specifically related issues exist back in your principal account...

And don't 'fix' duplicates----trash every last one of them. Then empty the trash and restart.

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Answer 2

westcot16 Author

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Nov 12, 2009 5:31 PM in response to K T

Thanks for your help! 🙂 I logged into my guest account (which I haven't been on since I installed Leopard, as I had heard problems with the Snow Leopard guest accounts until the 6.2 update) and opened Powerpoint/Word 2004 (which refuses to open in my account, and the reason I had to update to 2008) and Pages 2009. Both opened instantly and successfully.

The problem is, how do I fix this on my account?

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Answer 3

Nov 12, 2009 5:57 PM in response to westcot16

Try moving ~/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.Word.plist to your desktop, restarting, and trying Word. If doing so, solves your problem in Word, then maybe taking similar actions with your other pertient plist files will fix thing on the other problem apps. You can, of course, if you want, restore the file to its proper location if doing what you have done is not a fix.

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Answer 4

westcot16 Author

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Nov 12, 2009 6:20 PM in response to donv_the_ghost

Thanks for your suggestion! It seems to have worked for Word, but trying to open a blank document in Pages causes it to crash. Keynote opens a blank or template-based document, but as soon as I try to click to edit text, it crashes. I may have to try to reinstall iWork (not iLife, my mistake) and see if that works.

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Answer 5

westcot16 Author

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Nov 12, 2009 6:32 PM in response to westcot16

Actually, Office is back to freezing up again, and then starting up in a minute or so. It was working for a while, but Office kept asking me if I wanted to use a certain font during startup. I told it "don't allow," and disabled the font in Font Book, and now Office is back to being slow again. :/

Also, the .plist files I dragged to the desktop... do I need to drag them back into the Library folder (since there's already copies in there), or should I drag them to the trash?

Thanks! 🙂

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Answer 6

Nov 13, 2009 5:37 AM in response to westcot16

You can do either with the plist.s Why not use Fontbook to identify bad and duplicate fonts. Then, rather than delete them, removed them from your machine.

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Answer 7

Kurt Lang

Level 9

69,384 points

Nov 13, 2009 7:02 AM in response to westcot16

"Optimizing font performance" text pops up on the Word/Powerpoint startup window ... (I have 600+ fonts, but it still shouldn't do this)

It shouldn't take quite that long, but that still is a lot of fonts to have open at once.

It seems to have worked for Word, but trying to open a blank document in Pages causes it to crash. Keynote opens a blank or template-based document, but as soon as I try to click to edit text, it crashes.

Office and Pages/Keynote are completely unrelated to each other, vendor wise. Something is going on at the OS level to affect multiple apps from both Apple and Microsoft.

It may not be as simple as this, but try removing all font cache data from your Mac. Download the Snow Leopard version of OnyX. Click the Cleaning heading and then the Fonts tab. Check all items (except Gimp if you're not using that), then click Execute. When it's done clearing the cache files from the system, it will tell you to restart. Do not skip that step!

After the Mac restarts, check to make sure OnyX has removed the Office cache files. Close all Office applications. Remove the following files. The tilde (~) indicates your home account.

~/Library/Caches/com.microsoft.browserfont.cache

~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office Font Cache (11)

For Office 2008, the location of the second item is:

~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Office Font Cache (12)

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Answer 8

TildeBee

Level 7

31,923 points

Nov 13, 2009 8:58 AM in response to westcot16

Just curious here.
+but Office kept asking me if I wanted to use a certain font during startup.+
What font was that?

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Answer 9

westcot16 Author

Level 1

0 points

Nov 13, 2009 2:11 PM in response to TildeBee

The font is called "ITC Tremor." I ended up disabling it, and might as well delete it.

Thanks Kurt for the suggestion. I actually have Onyx downloaded. I already cleaned font caches with the "Automation" section, but I'm about to try what you just suggested.

And also, just to clarify for anyone (since I was a little unclear about it in the first place) I originally upgraded to Office 2008 because Office 2004 wouldn't open under my account in Snow Leopard. Every time I tried to load 2004, the beach ball would pop up after a few seconds, and under the processes on my iStat widget, it would be running at 90% or higher. It would be stuck on the same font message that I'm getting now from 2008, except the program wouldn't ever load.
I originally thought it was an issue with Rosetta since I had just upgraded from Leopard to Snow Leopard with just about the same amount of fonts, and it NEVER gave me trouble before. Just last night, I tried Office 2008 in my guest account (with just default system fonts)... and it worked fine.

Could it be possible that some of the fonts won't work correctly with Snow Leopard, with that being the reason why some programs while trying to load fonts either crash or take a long time?

Message was edited by: Westcot

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Answer 10

Kurt Lang

Level 9

69,384 points

Nov 14, 2009 7:43 AM in response to westcot16

I originally thought it was an issue with Rosetta...

Rosetta doesn't have anything to do with fonts. Nor with Office 2004, which is already Intel native.

Could it be possible that some of the fonts won't work correctly with Snow Leopard...

No. All fonts work in Snow Leopard that did before. Although it took until 10.6.2 to fix some issues with Type 1 fonts.

I tried Office 2008 in my guest account (with just default system fonts)... and it worked fine.

And that's likely the answer. Try this. First be sure all Office apps are closed. Go into the Preferences folder of your normal user account and move the folder "Microsoft" to the desktop. Now launch each Office app to force them to create new preferences. Do the problems persist?

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Answer 11

westcot16 Author

Level 1

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Nov 14, 2009 8:45 AM in response to Kurt Lang

Thanks for more help, Kurt, but it appears that I have solved my Office problems... so far. I went into Font Book, deleted any fonts that I rarely use, and even came across a few that froze up Font Book. I deleted those immediately, emptied the trash, restarted, and Office starts up without any wait now and no "Optimizing font performance" text. Heck, I even tried 2004 in my account, and it actually works now!

However, iWork 2009 still freezes. I have iWork 2006 installed, and that starts up fine with no problems. I think the best solution for that will be to delete 2009 and reinstall. Please let me know if anyone else has any other solutions! 🙂

THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR ALL OF YOUR HELP! 🙂

Message was edited by: Westcot

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Answer 12

Kurt Lang

Level 9

69,384 points

Nov 14, 2009 10:00 AM in response to westcot16

and even came across a few that froze up Font Book.

Most likely severely damaged fonts, which will always cause such problems.

Glad you've got it (mostly) sorted out.

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