M Word: Changed Default Font, now several problems...

Hello,

After several months of aggravation -- staring at "Times New Roman" which somehow had become the default font after I had my computer in for repair -- I finally attempted to change the default font late last night, following instructions on a microsoft word forum.

I went to the format menu, and then to 'font', changed it to Arial, 14 pt., and hit the default tab/button in the lower left hand side of the menu screen.

Ever since then, three things have happened:

1. Every document I open up has now changed to what looks like "Courier", (although it says 'Arial').

2. Documents that use to contain several different sized fonts -- from say 12pt to 20pt, are all now 14 pt.

3. When I select text and try to change the font or the type size...nothing happens. (I can still make it bold, or italicize or underline it, but that's it.)


Any suggestions/help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Dan

I'm not sure what you did, but whatever happened it certainly is not supposed to happen that way. Changing the default font is only supposed to change it upon opening a new document, not those which already exist. And it would not force every font to be the same.

I suspect you had corruption in your Normal Template before you made the change and now it's really messed up. Look up the procedure for deleting your Normal Template and delete it. Word will create a new one the next time you open it. That should get rid of the corruption.

Thanks for your reply and suggestion. I really appreciate it.

I followed the instructions from this thread...

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/os-x-apps-games/276291-microsoft-word-templates.html

...which said "Open the Finder. Click on "Go" from the top menu. Click on "Go to Folder" at the bottom of the dialog box, type in "Library".

...and when I typed in "Library", it said "not found".

???

My Mac OS is 10.7.5., it that's any help.

Yeah, Apple has made it more difficult that it really has to be by hiding the User Library.

Let's do this:

Open your Terminal: Applications, Utilities, terminal.app. Copy and paste this into the terminal: chflags nohidden ~/Library/ and press enter. Now, exit the terminal by typing exit.

Your User Library will now appear. Follow the directions to remove the normal.dotm template.

chscag said:

Yeah, Apple has made it more difficult that it really has to be by hiding the User Library.

Let's do this:

Open your Terminal: Applications, Utilities, terminal.app. Copy and paste this into the terminal: chflags nohidden ~/Library/ and press enter. Now, exit the terminal by typing exit.

Your User Library will now appear. Follow the directions to remove the normal.dotm template.

Click to expand...

I was able to open the terminal, followed the instructions above, but once again, when I clicked on "Go to Folder" and typed in library, I got the same result: "The Folder can't be found."

I appreciate your help...just not sure how to proceed from here. Is there perhaps another way to locate the library?

If you followed my directions, the User library folder is there. OK, let's do it this way:

1. Make sure you first shut down all Office applications.

2. Open your Finder.

3. Navigate to the following (be careful of the folders here)

Macintosh HD/Users/your user name/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/Normal.dotm

4. Delete "Normal.dotm" but do not empty the trash!

5. close the Finder.

6. Open MS Word

Let's see if that get things back to normal. Note that by removing the normal template all your menu changes will go back to the default Word menus and fonts that were there when you first installed Word.

I appreciate your patience.

As you can probably tell by now, I'm not exactly very technically oriented. I use my computer mainly for photography and art -- and a little writing -- but am clueless when it comes to some of the computerspeak used on these types of forums.

I must come off as a complete idiot, but I didn't understand this key sentence:

"3. Navigate to the following (be careful of the folders here)..."

How do I 'navigate' to there...?

Thanks again in advance.


p.s. When I clicked on my HD in the corner of my desktop, I see the Library folder...I clicked on that...and Application Support is there...and inside that folder is a Microsoft folder...but didn't see any 'Office' folder inside...

It's OK. "Navigate" means "go to". Click on your Finder icon in the dock and the Finder will open. Follow my directions from Step 3. In other words, go to each of the following:

Macintosh HD/Users/your user name/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/Normal.dotm

When you get to "Normal.dotm", delete it but don't empty the trash.

Close the Finder and restart Word.

p.s. When I clicked on my HD in the corner of my desktop, I see the Library folder...I clicked on that...and Application Support is there...and inside that folder is a Microsoft folder...but didn't see any 'Office' folder inside...

Click to expand...

There are two "library" folders. One belongs to the system, the other to you. That's why you need to exactly follow the directions above. If you do it right, all the folders I listed above will be there.

Okay, I was able to follow your instructions, and NAVIGATE through to the right folder and trash the "Normal.dotm" -- and yes, it's still in the trash, I didn't empty it.

I then opened up Microsoft Word, and while some documents say they're in the original typefaces (I opened up documents that I hadn't opened in the last few days, so some say courier, others New Times Roman, and others Arial or Verdana), I'm still seeing nothing but what looks like 'courier', even though when I highlight different parts of a document, it might say it's another typeface.

Also, it all looks like it's all 12 pt type, and although I can change the type to bold or italic or underline it, when I try to change the font size -- it says it's 18, or whatever -- but the size of the font doesn't change. When I try to change it to a different font, same deal. It stays as 'courier', even though it says at the top that it's Arial, or whatever.

???

Thanks for posting back. Since we now eliminated the normal template and you have a new one to work with, I suspect you have font corruption somewhere. The new normal template should have given you the "Calibri 12 point font" as the default for Word.

One thing you can try... Open your Font Book application and verify the fonts you have. That would be: Applications, Font Book.app. Microsoft Word actually installs a different set of fonts in addition to the ones that are part of the system. Some of them will be duplicates.

There is also a possibility that you're missing some critical system fonts. They may have been accidentally removed, and that's the reason why you're seeing the Courier substitution. If that's true, it means you'll need to reinstall OS X in order to get them back.

Hi again,

You said:

"Since we now eliminated the normal template and you have a new one to work with..."

I'm not sure that I do have a new one. When I navigate back through the folders as I did earlier, when I get to 'User Templates", there are two folders inside that, but no "Normal.dotm" that was there before.

It's still in the trash.

One thing...I opened Word earlier, I didn't 'restart' it. Did you mean I needed to restart or reboot the whole computer, or just word?

Thanks again,

Dan

p.s. I have 268 fonts in the Font Book Application.

Sorry this is dragging out so long!

When you opened Word after removing the old normal.dotm file, it created a new one for you. Otherwise Word would not have started up. Go back and look again, I think you'll find it there now.

I'm beginning to suspect you're missing some fonts that Word needs, which is why it's substituting "Courier". Since you have 268 fonts in your Font Book, it would require too much work to validate each and every one.

You can try a reinstall of MS Office if you would like. Let me know, and I'll give you the link to the MS instructions on how to do it. It's quite involved.

Sure enough, I went back in last night and the 'normal.dotm' is now there.

I guess my next question (!) is, will it be possible to reinstall MS Office if I no longer have the software? I must've bought it 10-15 years ago if not longer...so there's no way I have the original CD's and/or the receipt.

Thanks as always.

You bought Office 10 or 15 years ago? What version of Office do you have? You can't have anything less than Office 2008 otherwise it wouldn't work at all in Lion. Only Office 2008 and 2011 will work in Lion or Mountain Lion. All versions earlier than 2008 are PPC and will not work. Lion and Mountain Lion are Intel only and do not use Rosetta which is required to run Office 2004 and earlier versions.

Can you verify which version of Office you have? Click on the Word menu icon and select "about Word".

Sorry -- just dawned on me that the word that's on this computer could've been installed by the previous owner. I got this IMac after my old one (2006) 'died', in February 2011 -- from a friend who was going to give it to a thrift store(!).

Anyway, it's the 2011 version. (I remember now that some of my older documents had to be converted...)

OK, that's better. For a moment there, I thought maybe we were chasing up the wrong tree.

Anyway, without the original install media, if you uninstall Office 2011 you will be unable to install it again. Besides which, Office 2011 requires activation in the same way Windows does. At this point, I don't know what else to advise you except if you still want to resolve the problem.... and that means you'll need to purchase a copy of Office 2011. You can buy the single install Home and Student version for around $90 at several web stores.

Another option is to give up on Word and purchase Pages from the Mac App store for $19.99. There is also the free LibreOffice and OpenOffice suites. I don't know if you use Powerpoint, Excel, or Outlook. I have the Home and Business 3 install version of Office 2011 but I only use Word and Powerpoint.

If I can be of further help let me know.

Hi again,

I contacted the woman who gave me the computer, and she actually still had the MS Office disks (from 2004). She popped 'em in the mail and they arrived today.

But you said above that I need the 2008 version, so am wondering if these will work w/Mac OSx 10.7.5.? I guess that means I have "Lion", but not "Mountain Lion"...but I'm assuming this original IMac was purchased in 2004-2005.

If you're using Lion (OS X 10.7.5) then your iMac is not a 2004 or 2005 model since both of those would be PPC iMacs and can not run Lion.

Click on your Apple menu at the top left side of the screen and select "About This Mac". Then click on "more info" as that will give you the model information. Anyway, if you're running Lion, you can't install Office 2004 as it will only work with OS X Snow Leopard and earlier versions of OS X.

chscag said:

If you're using Lion (OS X 10.7.5) then your iMac is not a 2004 or 2005 model since both of those would be PPC iMacs and can not run Lion.

Click on your Apple menu at the top left side of the screen and select "About This Mac". Then click on "more info" as that will give you the model information. Anyway, if you're running Lion, you can't install Office 2004 as it will only work with OS X Snow Leopard and earlier versions of OS X.

Click to expand...

That's what I thought. I forgot to ask my friend what year her software was from...but she must've installed it on an earlier computer. I checked the 'more info' link, and it says this computer is from "late 2006".

I see there are several versions of Office 2011 available -- home and student, home and business, and also home and student 'single user', "three user"...ranging from $89 to $119.

And then, on ebay, there's a seller selling the 2008 version for $47.50.

I'm assuming you'd recommend the 2011 version, multiple user?

I bought the Home and Business edition 3 user but it was $129.00 at the time. Unless you need to install Office 2011 on 3 machines, the single user edition should be fine. (I owned 2 Macs at the time.) Also, if you don't need Outlook, the Home and Student edition which you can get for $89 has Word, Powerpoint, and Excel which are what most folks need.

You can always reinstall Office 2011 using the same serial number on a single Mac as many times as you need to. You may have to contact MS to get it activated but you won't have to pay for it again as long as it's only being installed on one Mac you own.