Why does some text no longer appear in Slides?

[Jan Il]

Hi All - PPT 2002 XP, Windows ME

I am not sure why but, when I open some of my schematic slides that were
created/converted in 2000, some of the text is no longer visible.

I just opened a few of these to do some updating, and some of the text is no
longer visible. I have ungrouped the items, and, when I do the select all,
the text boxes where appear to be where they are supposed to be, and are
highlighted in the grouping, but the test is not visible.

Thinking that perhaps the change to 2002 might have had some affect on the
sizing of the fonts, I expanded the test boxes to see it this would reveal
the text, but, no.

I am sorta treading unknown waters in this, and although I have my arm
floaties on...the current seems to be taking me down stream p-r-e-t-t-y
fast. But, what really seems kinda testy, is that really big boulder in the
middle of the stream....and the 'lil beaver on the shore lookin' at me and
shakin' it's 'lil head...and all I can think of at that point is......dam...

Jan

 

[Sonia]

Is this only in Normal view? Does the text show up in Slide Show view?

If you open the same copy of the file in PowerPoint 2000 is the text okay?
I realize that you might have to take the file to work to try this, but it
needs to be the same copy.

You say "some of the text" is no longer visible. Do you see a pattern of
any kind? Different font for what shows vs. what doesn't show? Different
font size or style? Is the font animated?
--

Sonia, MS PowerPoint MVP Team
http://www.soniacoleman.com
(Tutorials and Autorun CD Project Creator)
PowerPoint Live! - Featured Speaker
Tucson, AZ; October 12-15, 2003

 

[Gus Arabadjis]

I'm not sure if this will fix your problem but I once had a
similar symptom and the problem was that the text was
covered by another object (such as a colored box) and had
to be brought forward. So you might try the following:

First bring up the drawing toolbar from the menu
View->Toolbars and then click the Drawing option. Next
select the text that you cannot see. On the Drawing
toolbar select Draw->Order->Bring to front. This will take
the selected text and bring it to the top layer, on top of
any object that has been covering it.

Hope this works for you. It's worth a try.

Gus

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I just opened a few of these to do some updating, and some of the text is
no

longer visible. I have ungrouped the items, and, when I do the select all,
the text boxes where appear to be where they are supposed to be, and are
highlighted in the grouping, but the test is not visible.

Hmm.

What happens when you change the fill, outline, text color of these magical
mystical shy critters?

What if you click on one, press HOME, then press Shift+END, press CTRL+C
then paste into Notepad?
Iow, is there any there there? And failing that, is there text there?
What if you click into one of these things and just start typing?
If you can't click into one, tab until it's "lit up" and start typing?

 

[Jan Il]

Hi Sonia!

Is this only in Normal view? Does the text show up in Slide Show view?

If you open the same copy of the file in PowerPoint 2000 is the text okay?
I realize that you might have to take the file to work to try this, but it
needs to be the same copy.

You say "some of the text" is no longer visible. Do you see a pattern of
any kind? Different font for what shows vs. what doesn't show? Different
font size or style? Is the font animated?

The text does not show up in either view. The font is Ariel. None of the
fonts are animated. While some of the text is different sizes, the font is
the same, Ariel. I used that font in all of my schematics as it has no tails
so it reads easily, and it is a pretty standard font.

I checked a few other slides, and it seems that the only text that is
showing up, or is not distorted somehow, is the Times Roman and Tahoma. In
one slide, the text is actually changed to symbols, sorta like 'lil Alien
looking shapies. I can't even relate them to any of the regular symbol
shapes.

I had a similar problem with my Access databases only in the datasheet view.
the forms and all else was fine. I couldn't set a default font from the
program, I had to actually set it to Ariel in the Access registry to solve
the problem. But, I can't seem to find any way to do that for PPT.

I have, of course, tried to reselect the fonts to see if that would solve
the problem, but, the text is still not showing in the text box afterward.
As you say, I'll have to test this back in 2000 to see what happens in that
format.

It just still puzzles me why Times Roman and Tahoma are the only fonts, at
least that I have found thus far, that are not changed in any way. It was
the same in Access, all tables in Times Roman or Tahoma were fine,
everything
else was a mess. But, I don't know anything about the makeup of fonts. All
the embedded fonts in other slides are fine.

I'll check the slides in 2000 and let you know on that part.

Jan

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

The text does not show up in either view. The font is Ariel.

Well there's your problem. Ariel's a sprite. No wonder it comes and goes.
You want to format that text in Arial, which is a font.

Now you *know* I struggled long and hard over that but just couldn't let it
go.

 

[Jan Il]

Hi Steve!

is

Hmm.

What happens when you change the fill, outline, text color of these magical
mystical shy critters?

The text boxes all seem to behave as they should, I can fill, color the
lines, but, there does not appear to be anything in them when I tried to
change the outlines, fill colors, even tried underline and shadow. Nothing.

What if you click on one, press HOME, then press Shift+END, press CTRL+C
then paste into Notepad?

Text is there... huh??

Iow, is there any there there? And failing that, is there text there?
What if you click into one of these things and just start typing?
If you can't click into one, tab until it's "lit up" and start typing?

I can open the text box, but, when I just start typing, nothing shows up.
I tried to select the Tahoma font to see if that would make a difference,
but, even when it showed up in the box as I typed, when the box closed,
there was no text showing.

It seems like when I upgraded 2002 XP I kinda got zonked right on in to the
Twilight Zone. I have had a wazoolie of Windows, Access, browser, and
internet problems that are of the unknown or weirdiest kind, and now, this.
Whew!! My 'lil one cell is startin' to smoke a bit now, but, I'm gettin'
pretty good at troubleshooting though...

Jan

 

[Kathryn Jacobs]

Jan,
Just for fun, check your Replace Fonts window. See what happens if you
replace all the fonts with something else and then change them back. Does
this fix the problem?

--
Kathryn Jacobs, Microsoft PPT MVP
Get PowerPoint answers at http://www.powerpointanswers.com
Cook anything outdoors with http://www.outdoorcook.com
Kathy is a trainer, writer, Girl Scout, parent, and whatever else there is
time for
I believe life is meant to be lived. But:
if we live without making a difference, it makes no difference that we lived

 

[Jan Il]

Well there's your problem. Ariel's a sprite. No wonder it comes and goes.
You want to format that text in Arial, which is a font.

Now you *know* I struggled long and hard over that but just couldn't let it
go.

...hmm...yes...I can see what a struggle that had to be for
you......pic-ky...pic-ky..

 

[Jan Il]

Hi Kathy!

Jan,
Just for fun, check your Replace Fonts window. See what happens if you
replace all the fonts with something else and then change them back. Does
this fix the problem?

Sorry, no change. I tried creating new text boxes using the A R I A L <g>
font but still nothing shows up. I created a new text box and used the
Tahoma, and it showed up fine, same with Times Roman and MS SanSerif. But,
Antique Olive, Garamond, Verdana, all are no shows. Even fuzzy would be
better than.. what was he?

Jan

 

[Jan Il]

Hi Gus!

I'm not sure if this will fix your problem but I once had a
similar symptom and the problem was that the text was
covered by another object (such as a colored box) and had
to be brought forward. So you might try the following:

First bring up the drawing toolbar from the menu
View->Toolbars and then click the Drawing option. Next
select the text that you cannot see. On the Drawing
toolbar select Draw->Order->Bring to front. This will take
the selected text and bring it to the top layer, on top of
any object that has been covering it.

Hope this works for you. It's worth a try.

Thank you for your suggestion Gus, and I did check to see if perhaps this
was the case. While I did not place anything over the text boxes
intentionally, I thought perhaps, in view of some other very weird
happenings with the change over, anything could be possible.

But, it appears that all text boxes are free of any overt or covert
coverits.

Jan

 

[Robert Lerner]

Whew! That was a lot to read, so I may have missed some points.

I didn't see you directly answer Steve's question. Can you change the color
of the fonts?

And clarify, when you click into a textbox and use CTRL+A, it selects
"something", right? When you copy what it selected and then paste it into
Notepad characters display, yes? What happens when you paste it into a new
textbox in a new slide? Pasted into a new textbox in a new presentation?

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Have you tried the usual video driver tricks?

And it might be worth doing a Windows reinstall to see if the font thing
gets sorted.

--

Steve Rindsberg PPT MVP
PPTLive ( http://www.pptlive.com ) Featured Speaker
PPTools: http://www.pptools.com
PPT FAQ: http://www.pptfaq.com

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Whew! That was a lot to read, so I may have missed some points.

I didn't see you directly answer Steve's question. Can you change the color
of the fonts?

I read Jan as saying PowerPoint would allow it but the text stays invisible.
Invisible red is hard to tell from invisible white, so it wasn't possible to
give a definitive answer. ;-)

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Antique Olive, Garamond, Verdana, all are no shows. Even fuzzy would be

better than.. what was he?

wuzzabear

 

[Jan Il]

wuzzabear

Now *how* did I know.....

;-))

 

[Jan Il]

Have you tried the usual video driver tricks?

And it might be worth doing a Windows reinstall to see if the font thing
gets sorted.

I researched my 'lil bag of tricks info and followed all the instructions
I've gathered and, which includes a new update of the video drivers, tried
adjusting acceleration, color is set to 32, I did do the Win reinstall and,
while I did get my check registry back, it did not help the font problem. I
had all my fonts backed up to a cd, so just in case there had somehow been a
corruption of the fonts, I replaced all the fonts. But, no help there. Plus,
the same fonts are working fine in all the other programs at this point. So,
that kinda left that out, unless...PPT works with them differently. ???

The best I can determine from all the troubleshooting I have done thus far,
is that it seems to have to do with the fonts. If it were just the text box,
wouldn't the fonts show up in a new clean text box? I have created a new
text box in the slide, and then in another slide, and then a new slide, and
the results is the same. The Times Roman, Tahoma and SanSerif all show
fine...anything else is a no show.

I also 'sperimented with this...'k...I created the text boxes in Word using
the A R I A L font, then copied and pasted it into the slide....text is a no
show. Took the same text box and copied it back to Word...text shows. I
also did this with Courier New, and when I copied it to PPT, I got the alien
looking symbols again...back to Word, it's fine. ????

I'm afraid to even look at the graphics at this point...

 

[Kathryn Jacobs]

Jan,
What do you have installed for a local printer?

--
Kathryn Jacobs, Microsoft PPT MVP
Get PowerPoint answers at http://www.powerpointanswers.com
Cook anything outdoors with http://www.outdoorcook.com
Kathy is a trainer, writer, Girl Scout, parent, and whatever else there is
time for
I believe life is meant to be lived. But:
if we live without making a difference, it makes no difference that we lived

 

[Jan Il]

Hi Robert!

Whew! That was a lot to read,

Ah...well...being NG sun-dried laundry, I try to provide as much detail as
possible. ;-)))

I didn't see you directly answer Steve's question. Can you change the color
of the fonts?

And clarify, when you click into a textbox and use CTRL+A, it selects
"something", right? When you copy what it selected and then paste it into
Notepad characters display, yes? What happens when you paste it into a new
textbox in a new slide? Pasted into a new textbox in a new presentation?

I have tried your suggestion of the copy to a new text box in a new slide
and in a new presentation.
I even copied the text into a new text box in Word.

Results:

In PPT, no shows either way - In Word, showed ok...even Excel, ok. Didn't
try Access...patches on the flame holes on my hip boots haven't dried enough
yet for that. ;-))

Jan

 

[Jan Il]

Jan,

What do you have installed for a local printer?

I only have one..an HP G55 All-In-One, and I have also updated the drivers
for that.

Jan