When I use Microsoft Office 2011, none of the special characters (such as Greek letters) show up.

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Level 1

8 points

When I use Microsoft Office 2011, none of the special characters (such as Greek letters) show up.

When I use Microsoft Office 2011, none of the special characters (such as Greek letters) show up. Instead, I see rectangular boxes. When the Word document loads, it almost looks like a macro runs. I rebooted the computer in Secure Boot and the problem was corrected. I then tried dissabling startup items and booting normally. The problem returned. Next, I looked at what non Apple kernels were loaded durring the normal boot proceedure. I dissabled most of them, but the problem continues. I do not think reinstalling MS Office will help because the problem is abscent when I do a secure boot. It is like something that loads durring normal booting is casuing a conflict. Any suggestiions would be helpful?

Another note ... This problem pertains to Microsoft Office. The fonts in Adobe CS6 show up correctly. I am running the latest edition of Mountain Lion.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Feb 12, 2013 3:17 PM

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Answer 1

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,541 points

Feb 12, 2013 3:56 PM in response to clue1019

Back up all data.

Launch the Font Book application and validate all fonts. You must select the fonts in order to validate them. See the built-in help and the support article linked below for instructions. If Font Book finds any issues, resolve them, then boot in safe mode* (by holding down the shift key at the startup chime) to rebuild the font caches. Boot again as usual and test.

Mac 101: Font Book

*Note: If FileVault is enabled under OS X 10.7 or later, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t boot in safe mode. In that case only, after running Font Book, launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.

Drag or copy — do not type — the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:

sudo atsutil databases -remove

You'll be prompted for your login password, which won't be displayed when you type it. You may get a one-time warning not to screw up. After running the command, reboot as usual.

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Answer 2

clue1019 Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 12, 2013 5:02 PM in response to Linc Davis

I went to FontBook and validated all fonts (select all; validate fonts). Then I trashed the fonts that had serious errors (red circle). Afterwards, I restarted the computer with Secure Boot. After logging in, I restarted the computer normally. After OS X loaded I opened a Word document. I still have the same problems with the special characters. I should add that I temporily whiped out the all my preferences to make sure a preference did not cause the problem.

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Answer 3

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,541 points

Feb 12, 2013 5:05 PM in response to clue1019

Can you create documents with Greek letters in other applications, such as TextEdit?

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Answer 4

clue1019 Author

Level 1

8 points

Feb 12, 2013 7:49 PM in response to Linc Davis

I solved the problem. I turns out the characters that appeared as square boxes were from the font "Symbol." For some reason, there was a second font called "symbol" installed which casused the conflict. I removed "symbol," and problem was fixed. Thanks!

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