Arial font problem - only in Pages

I'm having a problem with the Arial font in Pages. My text was coming out squeezed together, so after trying to deal with the problem using Font Book to no avail, I deleted Arial and reinstalled a version from another Mac. That version seemed to fix the squished text problem, but now I am unable to select a block of text which is in Arial and either make it bold or italic. It's just unresponsive. I thought to try it in Text Edit, and the Arial font works fine there. Any ideas?

MacBook Air, iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on Apr 27, 2010 5:40 PM

40 replies

May 1, 2010 7:18 AM in response to KOENIG Yvan

Hi all -

At this point I have run the combo updater, repaired permissions twice, and deleted the Pages preferences (when I tried Pages from a test user account, I was able to manipulate the Arial font with no problems).

Unfortunately, the problem still persists. Could it be that I am trying to work with existing docs? When I tried Pages from a test user account, I didn't have access to my existing docs, so I just created a new one, and tried out the Arial font at the same size as on the existing doc. I'm wondering if that could cause a different result.

I'm just stumped at this point.

fruhulda

Level 6

15,167 points

May 1, 2010 7:49 AM in response to Gretchen Daniel1

It could be that it is the document/s. Try creating a new document with Arial. You can also make a copy of some of the faulty ones and change their font to something else and see how they behave.

Where did you get the documents from. Did you create them your self or are the from somewhere else?

Could you send one of the faulty ones to me? Click on my name and you'll find my email address.

May 1, 2010 8:07 AM in response to fruhulda

Hi -

When I change the font on the existing docs, everything seems to work as it should. I created these documents from a template that I made, so I tried using the template to create a brand new doc. Arial misbehaves in the new doc as well, but when I change the font to Georgia, for instance, it works correctly.
Interestingly, when I create a brand new document +without using my template+, I am able to use the Arial font at the same size and the font works fine - I can go from regular to bold to italic and back with no problems. So the problem seems to be limited to documents created from this template using the Arial font. I'm afraid this means I'll have to go through and manually change all of these docs!

Sending a document to you via email. Thanks for your help!

KOENIG Yvan

Level 8

41,825 points

May 1, 2010 8:36 AM in response to Gretchen Daniel1

May you send the template itself, not a document created with it.

Click my blue name to get my address.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) samedi 1 mai 2010 17:35:58

fruhulda

Level 6

15,167 points

May 1, 2010 8:52 AM in response to Gretchen Daniel1

I received one document and it behaved as it should on my computer. I returned three copies saved in Pages08, Word and rtf format.

fruhulda

Level 6

15,167 points

May 1, 2010 9:44 AM in response to fruhulda

Later I had problems to delete the sent file and its copies. It was some tiff and pdf file within the doc that still was in use. I had to log out and in again to be able to delete the files.

May 1, 2010 9:45 AM in response to KOENIG Yvan

Hello Yvan - I've emailed you the template itself. Thanks for your help.

May 1, 2010 9:52 AM in response to fruhulda

Hi fruhulda -

The doc you sent back to me saved as Pages '08 worked fine. I was able to save it as a Pages '09 doc, and re-open it, and the bold and italic buttons worked as they should. I wonder if this means I have to do the same with each document I've saved (there are hundreds!). Will be interested to see what Yvan finds with the template I've sent him - it seems that there must be something inherently wrong with the template itself?

May 1, 2010 11:07 AM in response to KOENIG Yvan

I'm seeing some very strange behavior. Yvan kindly remade my template and emailed it to me. At first it worked, now when I create a doc using his template, I get this message:

Substituted Font - The font “ArialMS” was substituted for the missing font “ArialMT.”

I don't have ArialMS in my Font Book!

And further, the doc created will not accept bold or italic commands. The text reverts to plain.

fruhulda

Level 6

15,167 points

May 1, 2010 11:30 AM in response to Gretchen Daniel1

Open the Font book and select the Ariel font. Use Cmd + I to get more info on the font. Now you can see the full name. I have ArielMT and ArielUnicodeMS and some others that are not relevant here. Which ones do you have?

KOENIG Yvan

Level 8

41,825 points

May 1, 2010 1:36 PM in response to Gretchen Daniel1

I sent you the font files.

ArialMT is the _internal name_ of the font Arial.ttf delivered with Snow Leopard
TimesNewRomanPSMT is the _internal name_ of the font *_Times New Roman.ttf_* delivered with Snow Leopard.

I guess that ArialMS and TimesNewRomaMS are internal name of old fonts.

What is really surprising is that you wrote me that you didn't got report of missing fonts when you used your original template. This template contain references to ArialMS and TimesNewRomanMS so, Pages was forced to display an alert report each time you created a doc from the template.

When you will have installed the clean Arial.ttf and TimesNewRoman.ttf that I sent you, normally you will get free of the error messages and you will be able to use the Bold attribute.

If I am less busy one of these days, I will search in my three other external HD if I may discover which are the fonts described by ArialMS and TimesNewRomaMS.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) samedi 1 mai 2010 22:36:35

May 1, 2010 3:59 PM in response to fruhulda

I have ArialMT, Arial-Black, ArialHebrew, ArialNarrow, ArialRoundedMTBold, and ArialUnicodeMS. These are in the group "All Fonts". In that group I have 175 fonts.

In the group "User", I only have 35 fonts. Of the Arial variety, I have ArialMT, Arial-Black, and ArialNarrow.

Could it be a problem that I only have 35 fonts in the "User" group?

Even though I have ArialMT installed, according to Font Book, when I open up the template that Yvan sent me, I get this message:

Substituted Font - The font “ArialMS” was substituted for the missing font “ArialMT.”

I don't understand this - according to Font Book I don't even have ArialMS.

May 1, 2010 4:01 PM in response to KOENIG Yvan

Hi Yvan, I installed those fonts but I already had them and got two error messages from Font Book that I had duplicate fonts. I don't understand this as I keep getting the message:

Substituted Font - The font “ArialMS” was substituted for the missing font “ArialMT.”

..even though I clearly HAVE the ArialMT font.

KOENIG Yvan

Level 8

41,825 points

May 2, 2010 3:07 AM in response to Gretchen Daniel1

At this time, I continue to ignore what is the ArialMS font.

In my machines I have an ArialUnicodeMS font but no ArialMS one.

Did you already apply a maintenance tool like Onyx to delete cache files ?

If you didn't, it's time to apply it.

Onyx is available for free from :
http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english/apps.html

Don't download the beta but the *_Onyx 2.1.4_* version.
As you are unaware of such tool, it may be a better choice to download (from the same page) Maintenance which doesn't embed the technoid features.

Run the tool to :

(1) repair permissions
(2) delete caches (mainly font ones)

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) dimanche 2 mai 2010 12:04:12

May 2, 2010 7:27 AM in response to KOENIG Yvan

An update:

-ran Onyx - repaired permissions

-ran Maintenance - cleared caches (including Font cache) and repaired permissions again

-restarted

-downloaded fresh copy of Yvan's template

-got one document warning message upon opening template for the first time:
Missing Font - TimesNewRomanPSMT

-changed fonts (to italic, bold, regular) in new document created with Yvon's template - no problems, acting as expected

-opened old (existing) document created with my old template: problems persist (unable to change Arial to Bold or Italic; when highlighting a block of text that should be bold, style "button" on toolbar shows blank although Format menu>Font shows Bold checked.

-Copied text from old document and pasted it into new document created from Yvan's template; same behavior persists (when highlighting a block of text that should be bold, style "button" on toolbar shows blank although Format menu>Font shows Bold checked.) Saved document.

This apparently means I will not be able to copy and paste the text from my existing docs into new docs created using Yvan's template, but must enter new text, or convert existing docs to plain text and then re-format?

Or is there any way to batch convert these 200+ docs?

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Arial font problem - only in Pages