Arial and Times New Roman fonts gone - Office 2008

Question

Arial and Times New Roman fonts gone - Office 2008

About a month ago, I began noticing that I could not see any text or figures in various Excel spreadsheets and Word documents that used Times New Roman or Arial fonts. I had not had a similar problem in the past 3+ years I have owned my Mac Pro with Office for Mac 2008. I can see text after I select the entire document or page or worksheet and change the font - but there has to be a better solution, right?

Times New Roman, for example, appears as a font in the "All Fonts" collection and the "User" collection on my Mac. It does not appear in the "Computer" collection in Font Book, and when I try to drag it there from the "All Fonts" collection (for example), I get an error message that this is a duplicate. Many, many, many, many rounds of validating and deleting fonts have ensued. If the durned font isn't a duplicate, then it gets turned "OFF", and I can't turn it back "ON" without getting an error message again.

Instead of burning 5 more hours on Google trying to figure this out, I thought I would try Discussions... Is there really no other option than trying to explore 4 different font folders on my computer and moving files here and there, thither and yon, etc., etc.?

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Aug 2, 2010 12:44 PM

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Answer 1

TildeBee

Level 7

31,923 points

Aug 2, 2010 3:27 PM in response to Andrew Greene1

Andrew --
Read this, OK?
http://www.jklstudios.com/misc/osxfonts.html

Kurt Lang has explained it all there.
I know it's long, but concentrate on sections 2 and 3.

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Answer 2

Aug 2, 2010 5:27 PM in response to Andrew Greene1

I just opened excel (2008) and the Times New Roman is listed.
In Font book, Times New Roman is in All Fonts and Computer.

*Not in User.*

Can you delete the User version and then copy/drag the one from All Fonts to Computer?

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Answer 3

KXsig

Level 2

310 points

Aug 2, 2010 8:56 PM in response to Donald Palmer

Fellows,

Not a solution but it is good to observe. Only few days ago I found out that Microsoft Office had enabled it's own fonts disabling use of numerous Mac OS native fonts. Hand it carefully, disable duplicated families, enable the native version (use the Preview menu in Font Book to show Font Info so you can see where it is located), use the context menu over disabled font to show in Finder and move that file from there to prevent using.

Regards, K.

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Answer 4

Aug 3, 2010 4:35 AM in response to Andrew Greene1

~Bee : I spent about 2 hours with that document last night. Honestly, it's over my head - very well written, of course, but just beyond my level of comprehension.

Donald - On my system, I deleted the Times New Roman from User and now it is only in All Fonts, English, and Computer, but still does not show up in Excel or Word 2008.

KXsig - I have tried on numerous occasions to resolve conflicts, find duplicates, etc., etc., ad nauseum.

Thanks for all of your help.
I may have to find a professional to look at this - it's getting ridiculous. It is possible that I have screwed something up on my own, but all I do is 'production' work on this machine - I never even knew a 'Font Book' existed, if that tells you anything.
Oh well.

Thanks!

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Answer 5

gsmetz

Level 1

15 points

Aug 25, 2010 12:39 PM in response to Andrew Greene1

I upgraded from 10.4 to 10.5 and then to 10.6. On the move to 10.6, I found a number of fonts, including Arial and Times New Roman, that were broken; e.g. would display on the screen in a Word document but appear blank when sent to a printer.

The problem seems to involve conflicts between old and new copies of the same fonts. The solution that worked for me was to find and delete the old ones. Specifically:

Look at /Library/Fonts and /Users/(your_name)/Library/Fonts in two side-by-side finder windows.
Sort both by name, and scroll through the two lists looking for the duplicates.
Note: if one has a file extension such as .ttf or .ttc and the other doesn't, they're still duplicates.

For each duplicate found, verify that the copy in the /Users/(your_name)/Library/Fonts folder is the older of the two (all of mine were); then drag the older one to an empty folder on your desktop.

When you're finished, test to verify that the problem is solved; then delete the folder of old fonts.

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Answer 6

gsmetz

Level 1

15 points

Aug 26, 2010 7:21 AM in response to gsmetz

An important addendum to my post about deleting duplicates: when looking for / deleting duplicate fonts, be sure to check the "kind" of file in the finder window; go ahead and delete duplicate fonts and font suitcases; do NOT delete it if its "kind" is "document."

Other additional info: the files with extensions .ttf and .ttc are the Snow Leopard versions. Keep those and delete the copy with no extension. In general, that will be the copy under "user"

Another note: after deleting those duplicate fonts, quit and reopen application to help them find all the fonts.

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