Font Won't Show Up In Word

FontNuke doesn't delete fonts, it deletes font cache data. All of your fonts are still on the drive. What's wrong is Font Book's database is corrupt. Or at least, 99% of the time, that's what's wrong when the fonts are listed in Font Book, but none, or only some of them appear in your apps.

Restart your Mac and immediately hold down the Shift key when you hear the startup chime to boot into Safe Mode. Keep holding the Shift key until you see a progress bar towards the bottom of the screen. You can let go of the Shift key at that point. Yosemite is a bit different. Whether it's a Safe Mode boot or a normal one, you get the same progress bar. It just takes longer to get to the desktop in Safe Mode. So hold the Shift key until you get to the desktop.

OS X asks you to log in (you will get this screen on a Safe Mode boot even if your Mac is set to automatically log in). Let the Mac finish booting to the desktop and then restart normally. This will clear Font Book's database and the cache files of the user account you logged into in Safe Mode.

Upgrading the macOS over any older version commonly corrupts Font Book's database. Then you see issues like that. Such as, Font Book shows the font in its list and says it's active, but you can't see the font in most, or any of your apps.

Did you try the steps for resetting Font Book earlier in this topic? That's usually all it takes to fix such problems. Here they are again:

Close all apps, particularly Font Book. Go to the Library folder of your user account. Open the Preferences folder. Put these two files in the trash.

com.apple.FontBook.plist

com.apple.FontRegistry.user.plist

You many not find both. It depends on whether or not you've deactivated any fonts with Font Book.

From an administrator account, open the Terminal app and enter the following command. You can also copy/paste it from here into the Terminal window:

sudo atsutil databases -remove

Terminal will then ask for your admin password. As you type, it will not show anything, so be sure to enter it correctly.

This command removes all font cache files. Both for the system and the current logged in user account. After running the command, close Terminal and immediately restart your Mac.

Another known issue that's been around since El Capitan is there are five OS supplied fonts that simply do not show up in Apple's apps. Six now in High Sierra. From my article:

The five (now six) fonts that will not work properly in El Capitan or Sierra (Athelas.ttc, Charter.ttc, Marion.ttc, Seravek.ttc and SuperClarendon.ttc) continue to be a problem in High Sierra. The issue was momentarily fixed in Sierra, but they went missing again as of 10.12.2. These five fonts remain in limbo with High Sierra. Iowan Old Style.ttc has joined this list in High Sierra.

When I first tested the original five known problem fonts upon High Sierra's initial release, renaming the fonts still worked. One of the recent updates to High Sierra caused renaming the fonts to stop working. It made me wonder if removing the buried .ATSD and .fontinfo data still worked.

I booted into Recovery mode to turn SIP off, then removed all of the info data for those fonts. Nothing! Not after a restart, clearing font caches, or renaming the fonts on top of removing the data info. None of Apple's apps will recognize these six fonts as being on the system. Microsoft Office, Adobe's and everybody else's software does. Just not Apple's.

At this time, the only fix is to copy these fonts from Yosemite and completely replace the High Sierra versions. That is, if you need to use these six particular fonts in Pages, TextEdit, or whatever Apple software you're using.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities, lindabodyplex!

I downloaded, installed, and verified a new font and it still doesn't show up in Word.

Sounds like you used the Font Book app, but did you install it using "Add Fonts." (See screenshot by Eric Root.) By default, Font Book will install in your user library font folder (HD/Users/your name/Library/Fonts/), which will then be available only to you and not other users of the same computer. As for it not showing in Word, all applications, especially Microsoft applications including Office Reminders should be off (quit) before installation of fonts.

Did you reboot the computer?

You might try clearing the font cache with an app such as FontNuke.

Generally, fonts for Microsoft are located in one of two Libraries: (a) HD/Library/Fonts, or (b) HD/Library/Fonts/Microsoft/

HTH

I tried that Terminal trick… and it deleted several fonts including Times New Roman.

It didn't. The command only removes cache data, not fonts.

Fortunately FontBook makes it easy to reinstall.

Which means they were never missing since Font Book can't reinstall anything. There were still on the drive.

I'm having issues with a third-party OTF font not showing up in Word, too. … It is suddenly, after the last update, not available.

Since it was working before, we can presume there's nothing wrong with the font. Which version of Office are you using? If it's Office 2016, the apps no longer maintain their own font cache.

For Office 2011, the location is:

~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/Preferences/Office 2011/Office Font Cache

The tilde ~ means your user account, not the root Library folder. With all Office 2011 apps closed, put the file Office Font Cache from the above location in the trash. Launch any Office 2011 app and it will build a new font cache file.

Not that this may help, but it's a simple place to start.

Also, and I mention this because a lot of folks don't know it, any fonts you activate after Word is already running will not show up in the app. You have to close Word and relaunch it. You'd think MS would have fixed this by now. It's the only professional app I've seen with this behavior. The rest all recognize fonts you open and close on the fly.

My problem was that fonts I had previously used in Word were no longer showing. I don't know if the cause was upgrading to High Sierra or not, but it was after that I noticed the problem. I followed the advice to boot into safe mode and then reboot, and they were back.

Thanks

The fonts were entirely gone off my computer—didn't show up in the font folders at all, and were grayed out in FontBook. I had to re-download all the fonts (oddly, they were system fonts that were deleted).

I'm using the subscription version of Office, and the font was available until the most recent update. Here's a strange tale for you… I'll be interested to see what you make of it.

This is a third-party font I purchased years (15?) and several computers ago. The font file seems to have disintegrated (for lack of a better term), randomly corrupted. I had the original font file saved on an external hard drive and thought to re-install it from that. Nope. It came up with this message in FontBook: "1 serious error found. Do not install."

Anyhow, I deleted those files, cleared the cache again, and bought the font again. The newly purchased font is showing up just fine in Word and everywhere else. I wonder… was the old file somehow no longer compatible?

Are these cost fonts, or are they free fonts I can download to look at? If the latter, could you please provide links to two or three of them? Thanks.

But as you say, they're all from the same source, and Font Book claims they're all bad. That's seems pretty darn hard to believe. Still, I'd like to take a quick peek.

The fonts were entirely gone off my computer—didn't show up in the font folders at all, and were grayed out in FontBook. I had to re-download all the fonts (oddly, they were system fonts that were deleted).

I don't know what happened there, but the command given above won't delete fonts. And the OS itself won't let any app, not even one of its own, do such a thing in the System folder. Not while SIP is enabled. The only exception is an OS upgrade or update where each has to give itself permission to remove, add, or alter files.

I'd be concerned there is file corruption across the entire drive. That is, cross-linked data. The cache file was removed, but was also incorrectly cross-linked to a font. So, both disappeared when that would never normally happen.

From 15 years ago, that would likely have been a Type 1 PostScript font. Those still work, so that itself wouldn't have been the problem. Since Font Book flagged it as having a serious error, it was likely damaged at some point. Not that Font Book's warnings are usually worth a hill of beans. You can particularly ignore any yellow caution warnings it throws out - always.

I'm afraid I don't know enough about iCloud Drive to follow your procedure. I particularly don't understand putting fonts in the Applications folder. There's no need to ever put them there. Once activated with Font Book (using the normal method), they get copied to the Fonts folder within your user account anyway. Those are the ones that then get used. Any sitting in the Applications folder are doing nothing.

FontNuke deleted around 500 fonts from my computer and now I can't install ANY new fonts, via fontbook or by directly putting them in the library. Fonts I've used for years with no issues, now I can't get to show up in ANY program, whatsoever, even though they're all in the font library.

Maybe rethink recommending FontNuke on an apple Forum, since it's not from an apple verified developer.

Mac OS 10.11.6

Word 16.9.1 (180125)

After software update (of Work and MacOS) a font disappeared from work but is present in Excel, Apple Mail...

I tried the reboot in to Safe Mode followed by Reboot. Font still missing in Word. The font files are located in /Library/Fonts directory.

Any other suggestions?

I tried that Terminal trick… and it deleted several fonts including Times New Roman. Fortunately FontBook makes it easy to reinstall.

I'm having issues with a third-part OTF font not showing up in Word, too. This is a font I've had for years and was showing up in Word just a couple months ago. It is suddenly, after the last update, not available.

All my fonts get the same error message with the warning to not use the font, that it could crash the computer. Many of the fonts were recently downloaded, and many were from the same sources as fonts which are currently in use and in the Font Book. What kind of fonts may I use? Should I try to use one of the thousands of fonts on my computer which used to work? I’m at a loss and miss having new fonts.

All my fonts get the same error message with the warning to not use the font, that it could crash the computer.

If these are yellow caution warnings from Font Book, ignore them. The one and only time caution warnings from FB mean anything is if it's telling you a font conflicts with another.

If they're red warnings, the fonts are likely damaged and should not be used. Why they would be when obtained from the same source as the others you use is a slightly confusing.

But, that depends on where you get them from. If it's Adobe, Linotype or other vendors known for quality fonts, then it's unlikely to be the fonts. At least, not at the source server. They may be getting damaged during transfer.

If you mean an aggregate site of free fonts, such as 1001freefonts.com, then all bets are off. They don't check the quality of anything there. They just load up the site with free fonts, that come from wherever. Testing is probably limited to, "Yup. It shows up when I add it to the system. Put it on the site." So, FB may be finding errors with any number of free fonts it doesn't like. However, that comes back to yellow caution tags. These "errors" are commonly nothing to worry about. Like having old data tags. That doesn't make them bad, they just have deprecated data in them.

Some such sites offer fonts which are not free, but are copies of commercial fonts. Lots of places that offer free font downloads unknowingly (I presume) have commercial, cost fonts on them. The better sites ensure what they're going to add aren't stolen commercial fonts. They don't want to get sued out of existence.

What kind of fonts may I use?

There's all kinds you can use. See the list of supported font types in my article, Font Management in macOS. Click on the link for section 15.

I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

I'll check out the article. Thank you.

The fonts are from many different sources, most commercial, from DVDs mostly. The Free Fonts were all usable in the past, but became unusable when I installed Mac OS 10.12. Some had been installed in Font Book and disappeared. Could Font Book be corrupted, and if so, how do I get a clean copy without installing a new operating system?

Thanks again.