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how can you tell if a word document has an embedded font
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McSwell
Sep 22, 2011, 11:34:13 AM9/22/11
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We're having trouble reading some characters in Word 2003 documents
that someone else sends to us; they show up as boxes. The glyphs for
the Unicode code points in question aren't included in "standard"
fonts, but are in fonts we don't have installed (we're working on
that, but we're going to see *lots* of different fonts over the course
of a project). I can see the characters if I select the boxes and
assign them to an appropriate font we do have installed, but that's a
pain--there may be 20-50 of these boxes in any given doc. And I can't
use these other fonts for the entire doc, so I have to fix the problem
box-by-box.
The creators of these documents claim that they have embedded the
special fonts into the doc (not sure if they're embedding just the
code points in question, or the entire font, but that shouldn't
matter). Nevertheless, at our end the code points show up as boxes.
We're using Word2010; not sure what version the creators are using.
Is there any way to tell from the doc whether the fonts have been
embedded? (besides the fact that the characters don't show up!) That
would at least tell us whether the problem is at their end (like
they're forgetting to embed the font) or at our end (perhaps Word2010
has an incompatibility with whatever version they're using). I can
see how to embed a font in the File | Save dialog, but I don't see
anything in the document properties that would tell me whether this
has (or has not) been done.
And yes, we have suggested they send us PDFs instead.
Mike Maxwell
that someone else sends to us; they show up as boxes. The glyphs for
the Unicode code points in question aren't included in "standard"
fonts, but are in fonts we don't have installed (we're working on
that, but we're going to see *lots* of different fonts over the course
of a project). I can see the characters if I select the boxes and
assign them to an appropriate font we do have installed, but that's a
pain--there may be 20-50 of these boxes in any given doc. And I can't
use these other fonts for the entire doc, so I have to fix the problem
box-by-box.
The creators of these documents claim that they have embedded the
special fonts into the doc (not sure if they're embedding just the
code points in question, or the entire font, but that shouldn't
matter). Nevertheless, at our end the code points show up as boxes.
We're using Word2010; not sure what version the creators are using.
Is there any way to tell from the doc whether the fonts have been
embedded? (besides the fact that the characters don't show up!) That
would at least tell us whether the problem is at their end (like
they're forgetting to embed the font) or at our end (perhaps Word2010
has an incompatibility with whatever version they're using). I can
see how to embed a font in the File | Save dialog, but I don't see
anything in the document properties that would tell me whether this
has (or has not) been done.
And yes, we have suggested they send us PDFs instead.
Mike Maxwell
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Sep 22, 2011, 12:10:47 PM9/22/11
to
There do seem to be some embedding issues in Word 2010. I worked with a user
who was having a problem with a certain font just plain not being embedded
in a Word 2010 .docx even though embedding had been ordered. The font in
question was Kabel Book BT, and it wasn't just specific characters but the
entire font that wasn't embedding properly (Century Gothic was being
substituted).
One thing you can check on is font substitution. The button is in the "Show
document content" section of File | Options | Advanced.
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org
"McSwell" <max...@umiacs.umd.edu> wrote in message
news:5e65e941-b84a-4f3e...@n40g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
who was having a problem with a certain font just plain not being embedded
in a Word 2010 .docx even though embedding had been ordered. The font in
question was Kabel Book BT, and it wasn't just specific characters but the
entire font that wasn't embedding properly (Century Gothic was being
substituted).
One thing you can check on is font substitution. The button is in the "Show
document content" section of File | Options | Advanced.
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org
"McSwell" <max...@umiacs.umd.edu> wrote in message
news:5e65e941-b84a-4f3e...@n40g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
McSwell
Sep 22, 2011, 2:04:56 PM9/22/11
to
On Sep 22, 12:10 pm, "Suzanne S. Barnhill" <sbarnh...@mvps.org> wrote:
> One thing you can check on is font substitution. The button is in the "Show
> document content" section of File | Options | Advanced.
Thanks--I didn't know that was hidden in there.
> One thing you can check on is font substitution. The button is in the "Show
> document content" section of File | Options | Advanced.
I'm getting some really odd results: the font substitution dialog
reports six or seven fonts that it had to substitute. However, using
Word's Find dialog to search for these, I only see two or three of
them anywhere in the document. Why does the substitute dlg report the
other ones--could they be fonts that the original style sheet (.dot
file) might have called for, but didn't actually get used in this
document?
Also, Word's Find dialog and its Font dialog disagree over some of the
characters--one reports one font, the other reports a different font.
What gives with that?
Mike Maxwell
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Sep 22, 2011, 4:22:13 PM9/22/11
to
I think Word does keep a record of fonts that have ever been in a file. If
it is a .doc file, you can open it using the Recover Text from Any File
setting and see a font list toward the end. If you insert a symbol (from a
"symbol" font such as Symbol or Wingdings) in ordinary text, it may report
the same font as what is around it, but it is encoded such that it won't be
changed if you change the font. This is discussed in my article at
http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/InsertSpecChars.htm, but I don't pretend
to understand all of that!
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org
"McSwell" <max...@umiacs.umd.edu> wrote in message
news:608217c1-e343-451e...@x1g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
it is a .doc file, you can open it using the Recover Text from Any File
setting and see a font list toward the end. If you insert a symbol (from a
"symbol" font such as Symbol or Wingdings) in ordinary text, it may report
the same font as what is around it, but it is encoded such that it won't be
changed if you change the font. This is discussed in my article at
http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/InsertSpecChars.htm, but I don't pretend
to understand all of that!
--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org
"McSwell" <max...@umiacs.umd.edu> wrote in message
tlvp
Oct 5, 2011, 12:06:42 AM10/5/11
to
On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 11:10:47 -0500, Suzanne S. Barnhill wrote:
> One thing you can check on is font substitution. The button is in the "Show
> document content" section of File | Options | Advanced.
Really? Word 2010 resuscitated the File menu that Word 2007 ditched? Kudos!
> One thing you can check on is font substitution. The button is in the "Show
> document content" section of File | Options | Advanced.
BTW, thank you for your very helpful [Word] | Prepare | Edit Links ...
instructions in http://sbarnhill.mvps.org/WordFAQs/RedX.htm .
That, selecting all the links shown in the resulting list, and then
clicking on the [Update] button, replaced all our RedX Links with the
images we had originally intended :-) .
(Why? who cares. But why necessary? That's the $64 question ... :-) .)
Cheers, -- tlvp
--
Avant de repondre, jeter la poubelle, SVP.
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