PPT 2003: Any Arial Black text is alwyas italicised - help!

D

Dave Jenkins

I have a PPT 2003 user whose system is all of a sudden unable to display
Arial Black regular text - it always italicises it. This does NOT happen in
Word and other Office programs - only PowerPoint.

We have reinstalled the .ttf and .otf font files for Arial Black, but to no
avail.

The same file will display normally on other PPT 2003 systems, so it seems
to be something peculiar to his PC.

One interesting thing I've noticed: The Font dialog display for Arial Black
in PowerPoint doesn't include a "regular" entry. (Go here:

http://www.screencast.com/users/KBShots/folders/Jing/media/ce200cdc-6795-4992-819c-9b5d698263ed

for a screenshot of what I'm talking about.) I suspect that may be driven by
a registry entry somewhere, but don't know where.

Does the registry hypothesis have any merit? If so, which entry(s) might
need repair? If not, any other ideas on how to diagnose/fix this problem?

Thanks!
 
D

Dave Jenkins

Dave Jenkins said:
I have a PPT 2003 user whose system is all of a sudden unable to display
Arial Black regular text - it always italicises it. This does NOT happen in
Word and other Office programs - only PowerPoint.

We have reinstalled the .ttf and .otf font files for Arial Black, but to no
avail.

The same file will display normally on other PPT 2003 systems, so it seems
to be something peculiar to his PC.

One interesting thing I've noticed: The Font dialog display for Arial Black
in PowerPoint doesn't include a "regular" entry. (Go here:

http://www.screencast.com/users/KBShots/folders/Jing/media/ce200cdc-6795-4992-819c-9b5d698263ed

for a screenshot of what I'm talking about.) I suspect that may be driven by
a registry entry somewhere, but don't know where.

Does the registry hypothesis have any merit? If so, which entry(s) might
need repair? If not, any other ideas on how to diagnose/fix this problem?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

As additional info: He is running on Windows XP SP2 - not sure of the SP
level on his Office ...
 
D

Dave Jenkins

Thanks, Steve. We'll give that a try in the AM. What are the ramifications
of having two files installed - is it the fact that both have the same font
name? (Files, of course, are named differently.)

I'm presuming that just moving the file out of the Cotnrol Panel Fonts list
will uninstall it - is that correct? (I want to move it to the desktop where
it can be reinstalled form later if required.)
 
D

Dave Jenkins

Sorry -- I reported some bum data. Let's start partially over.

On my Office 2007 system, I only have the Arial Black Truetype font
installed. Everything works OK, including the ability to italicize Arial
Black Text.

On my 2003, I've got both the Arial Black and Arial Black Italic fonts
installed, and everything works ok, including the ability to italicize Arial
Black text. On this system a font named "Arial Black Italic" is *not* a
choice when choosing fonts while manipulating text. WTH? Of what use *is*
that font?

And on the 2003 system with problems: With the Arial Black Italic (ABI) font
removed and Arial Black (AB) remaining, everything works OK, including the
ability to italicize AB text. But if we reinstall the ABI font, once again
everything that's supposed to be AB Regular (style) becomes AB Italic (style).

I don't know whether this serves to clarify or not. I guess I need a
lecture on fonts, etc. Especially one that's installed but doesn't show on
the font list when you do Format -> Fonts in PPT.

One last thing: The icon for the ABI font shows as an "O" and the icon for
the AB font shows as an "TT" - what does the "" signify?

Thanks.
 
D

Dave Jenkins

Thanks, Steve:

That serves to clarify a lot of my font murkiness.

However, our problem still exists:

On this on user's PC, when Arial Black Italic (ABI) font is installled,
_any_ attempt to format text as Arial Black , in any presentation, will
result in that text being italicisized. If ABI is removed, all is well.

So the _workaround_ is to remove the ABI font. That doesn't explain,
however, _why_ the presence of that font results in the problem. The font
file has been around since 1997, and never caused a problem on that PC
before. User has securd another copy of the font file, installed it, and
observes the same problem. The only thing he sees that is in any way out of
the oridinary is that he noticed a slew of Windows updates were installed
"recently."

The ox isn't in the ditch, so we're no longer in panic mode - he can do his
work ok. But: Is there something more sinister going on? And how to further
diagnose exact cause - any suggestions?

Thanks!
 
D

Dave Jenkins

Did you get the font files? I'm guessing that you probably won't experience
the same problem there as my guy does here.
 
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