Font compatibility with Office (for Mac and Windows)

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Font compatibility with Office (for Mac and Windows)

Hi,

Despite extensive searching, I'm struggling with a font compatibility issue between my Mac and my colleagues' PCs. The main points in order:

The fonts work correctly on both my Mac and other PCs.

The font in question is HelveticaNeueLT Std, rolled up into which are several different weights. The files are OTF files. The same files install without any problems on all the computers in question (and show up in Font Book). And the font can be used successfully:

- in Keynote, I select Helvetica Neue LT Std, and underneath choose whichever weight I want

- on PCs, the font and weight can be selected from the drop-down list in MS Office.

- in Office for Mac 2016 (Preview), I cannot select the font from the drop-down list, but can hit Cmd+T, and then select the appropriate font and weight under 'Latin text font'. What is odd is that in the dropdown list, only a particular weight/typeface is shown:

As this is a preview version, I wouldn't expect Office to work perfectly just yet...

When a file is created on a PC, it works fine on my Mac.

Every file I have attempted to open that was created on a PC, and using these fonts, works fine. The fonts display correctly (i.e. including the correct weights), and I can work with the document without any problems. The only odd bit: sometimes in the dropdown box on my Mac it then says (null):

Whereas at other times, the font name shows correctly:

Both of those examples were created using the 'Thin' weight of HelveticaNeueLt Std. I can't see any pattern as to what causes this inconstency.

The problem is that what I create on my Mac shows incorrectly on a PC.

If I create anything using Office 2016 or Keynote, selecting the preferred weight as described above, it shows just fine on my Mac. But when I send the PPTX file to a PC, all weights look identical (it looks as though the PC has just displayed everything in a standard weight). This is the problem I am trying to solve.

To try to get around this, I tried the process of removing the Helvetica/Helvetica Neue .dfont files that come with the Mac - but this didn't work and caused several other problems. Besides, the font I'm trying to get to use as intended has a different name.

All help would be greatly appreciated - my thanks in advance.

John

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

Posted on Apr 29, 2015 10:31 AM

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Answer 1

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Apr 29, 2015 10:34 AM in response to ILJH

I really don't think this is a question for here. I think you should be asking at the MS forums for the Mac. Especially, because you are using a beta version and this could just be a bug.

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Answer 2

ILJH Author

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Apr 29, 2015 10:49 AM in response to Kappy

Thanks Kappy and apologies if it is inappropriate - but just to clarify, my main question is whether fonts used in Keynote should be compatible with other software (in this case Office running on Windows). The Office for Mac Preview is a bit of a red herring but I thought it should be mentioned.

I tried to clarify my first post, but it didn't work. What I wanted to add was simply whether Keynote handles fonts in a way that other pieces of software struggle to read - despite the font itself working perfectly in both environments.

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Answer 3

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Apr 29, 2015 10:52 AM in response to ILJH

I would expect that normal Mac fonts would be compatible. I don't know about all the Office fonts unless they have been converted to Mac formats. If strict compatibility is needed then you should use Office rather than the iWork apps. In any event you need to experiment with the the current version of Office 2011. Or, you could experiment using something like Libre Office. It's freeware and mostly compatible with Office 2011.

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Answer 4

ILJH Author

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Apr 29, 2015 10:52 AM in response to Kappy

Thank you. The issue with Office 2011 is that it doesn't allow third party fonts... I will wait for the 2016 full release, but will try the free software you mentioned.

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Answer 5

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Apr 29, 2015 10:55 AM in response to ILJH

Not so. Any Mac compatible font can be used, but they must be installed in the standard OS X font folder.

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Answer 6

ILJH Author

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Apr 29, 2015 11:10 AM in response to Kappy

Are you sure? I've seen this mentioned dozens of times on forums, and Microsoft themselves seem to say so: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/295062

Or am I misinterpreting this?

All of my fonts (which are available in Keynote and elsewhere) are in the standard OS X folder; it is just Office 2011 that doesn't display/access them.

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Answer 7

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Apr 29, 2015 11:27 AM in response to ILJH

Maybe I'm wrong about this, but seems to me that Office would be able to choose any proper font installed in the Fonts folder, but maybe I'm remembering a previous version of Office.

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