Re: Word needs the font named...

Tech-Archive recommends: Speed Up your PC by fixing your registry

Hi Art:

You're new to Mac OS X and new to Word Mac?

I would recommend that you do not run ANY font manager at all :-) Font
managers can lead to Word crashes, particularly if used vigorously.

I would quit the font manager and leave it off at least until you develop
your expertise with Word and your new Mac. You will save yourself quite a
lot of fiddling and frustration.

I'm a long document specialist, and I don't use a font manager (on either
the Mac or the PC). Elliott's tip about typing the first letter of the font
name is all I need.

Because I tend to visit the font menu precisely ONCE for each font: in order
to define that font into a style. After that, I simply apply the style and
ignore the font completely (if the style is correct, the font is correct, if
the style is wrong who cares what the font is...).

Styles paste nicely into web editors: fonts do not :-)

Cheers


On 9/1/07 10:53 AM, in article
C1C81992.B748%art@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Art Shotwell"
<art@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 1/8/07 3:37 PM, in article 080120072337561853%nospam@xxxxxxxxx, "Elliott
Roper" <nospam@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <C1C809A1.B712%art@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Art
Shotwell <art@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I'm trying to organize my fonts... I'm new to the Mac and I'd like my fonts
list in Word shorter. I have more than 400 fonts showing up as active. So, I
installed Linotype's FontExplorer X. It appears that it must be running to
actually work. So, when running and I open Word and click on the dropdown
Fonts list, I get the message "Word needs the font named..." and there are
six fonts it wants: Chicago, Venice, Athens, London, Toronto & Cairo
(interesting that they're all city names...but I digress). But, I can't seem
to find these fonts anywhere so I can make sure they're available to Word.
Any suggestions???

First of all. Welcome to Macintosh, and congratulations on having such
a couth anti-spam address.

I don't know FontExplorer well. You might find OS X's own Font Book
application is more than enough for a measly 400 fonts. ;-)

There you make collections and switch off (disable) all but your
everyday fonts collection. That does the job. And you don't have to
keep it running.

Once you get familiar with Mac Word, you will find yourself using
styles. Then you'll hardly ever open the font menu.

Those fonts named after cities are mostly left overs from ancient
versions of Mac OS. Did you steal some documents from a 1980's exhibit
at a museum?

I don't understand how a freshly installed Word 2004 would ask for
those fonts on a brand new machine. Did the museum miss the Macintosh
straight away?
(OK I jest, don't hit me)

The fonts must be in the document you are editing, or in that dreaded
normal template. Is there some history here?
If yes, and you don't care about the template, chuck it away while Word
is not running. You will find it in ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/

Word makes a shiny new fresh one next time you start. After reading
your other post, it looks like it needs chucking anyway.

There is a lot of arcanity in keeping your fonts tidy, and managing
your user identities wisely on OS X. The two are not unrelated.

It's hard to know where to start. Keep asking questions here. We'll get
there.

In the meantime, in Word, here is a couple of tips for fighting the
font menu scrolling nightmare.
1. Turn off WYSIWYG font menu. It is ugly, wastes space, and ruins
trick 2.
2. Once the font menu is open, start typing the font name. That trick
works in every Mac menu in every application. You'll get down to
Zapfino as soon as you hit z.
OK, 3 tips
3. Dig around in the Word help for the formatting palette. Once you
have that set up to suit your working style, it is a much more
convenient font selector than the menu. It remembers recent fonts and
styles, and offers all kinds of other juicy Word goodness.

I'm starting you off gently here. This is a fairly useful place to ask
stuff like your questions. There are knowledgeable people here, and
quite a few that don't play about as much as I do.

If you don't want to look so green and new and all the next time you
come back here, I do recommend a pass through the MVP's collected heap
information at
http://www.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html

Don't let Word's help get you down. It is a disorganised heap designed
to frustrate and annoy until you get used to its idiosyncratic ways.
And then it is still a pain. The easy way to find something in there is
to know the answer.

Thanks for the tips... I do get Word docs from clients. I'm a (small-time)
Web designer and must massage sometimes horrendous copy before putting it on
a Web page. I recognized those fonts as being from old-time Macs... I
remember them from years ago when I worked, briefly, on a Mac system.

I'm thinking that FontBook is just fine, but FontExplore has some nice
features. For some strange reason, I seem to have two FontBooks; one in
Applications, the other in Utilities. The one in Applications refuses to
open... It starts, then closes. The one in Utilities works fine. They seem
to have different icons, but GetInfo shows same info. But, that's another
story.

I do have an after-market Word book. Still learning it. I worked for more
than ten years with Lotus WordPro (in Windows), which I found a very quick,
easy-to-use program.

One other thing: Is the preference in replies to place the reply at the top
or bottom of the original quoted text???




--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <john@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Business Analyst, Consultant
Technical Writer.
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410

.

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