helvetica issue

[Guy]

Hello,

The default font for my company is Helvetica. I have a lady who, when she
uses Helvetica with Powerpoint 2002, sometimes, the text scrunches all
together to the left of the slide. This makes it impossible for her to edit.
However, if you print it, it prints out fine. She is the only person that
is having this issue and it happens in a lot of her presentations. If she
changes the font to something else, it works fine. Has anyone ever seen this
before or have anything I can try to resolve this? I believe we've tried
repairing and uninstalling and reinstalling office.

 

[Troy @ TLC]

This is a font issue rather than an application issue. Few questions:
- what type of font (TrueType (TT) or PostScript (PS))?
- Because Helvetica is not a Windows standard font, how is it installed?

 

[Guy]

I was just informed by our software guy that we actually don't have
Helvetica, and we have a font mapping that points Helvetica to Arial. Now,
the Arial appears to be TT. She has no issues with Arial in Powerpoint. So
it must be the mapping that's messed up right? Should I replace that
registry key?

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Hey, you're not the famous "Some Guy on the Internet" are you?
I've been hearing about you for years. Nice to meet you finally. ;-)

It could be the mapping that's messed up, but it could also be a printer
driver issue.
Check to make sure the user's got a LOCAL printer driver installed and set
as default.
If the printer's one that includes Helvetica as a resident font, you'll
see a printer icon if you choose Format, Replace Fonts and look at the
upper list box for Helvetica.

If so, try setting a different default printer, one that doesn't have
helvetica resident, if only as a test

 

[max]

deinstall and reinstall the whole helvetica fonts set
that should do it

max

 

[Guy]

It tried replacing the registry key with my own, and that didn't help, so
maybe it's not the mapping.

I also tried the printer thing, and in fact, her default had a question mark
next to it when I went to replace fonts. I changed the default to a printer
that showed the printer icon, and it still messed up after a few minutes.
What else can I try?

 

[Guy]

We don't have Helvetica in the first place. We map Helvetica to Arial.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

It tried replacing the registry key with my own, and that didn't help, so
maybe it's not the mapping.

I also tried the printer thing, and in fact, her default had a question mark
next to it when I went to replace fonts. I changed the default to a printer
that showed the printer icon, and it still messed up after a few minutes.
What else can I try?

I'd substitute a TT font rather than one with the printer icon.

? means that the font's needed but not available.
Printer icon means the font is resident in the printer but may not be available
for display purposes.
TT means that both PPT and the printer can use the font.

 

[Guy]

None of the printers will show Helvetica as TT. A lot of other fonts show up
as TT, but not Helvetica and a few of others like Courier, and Palatino.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

None of the printers will show Helvetica as TT.

Correct. As far as I know, it's not a TT font.

A lot of other fonts show up
as TT, but not Helvetica and a few of others like Courier, and Palatino.

In order to be able to display the text properly, PowerPoint has to have access to
the font. It doesn't have access to PostScript printer fonts like Helvetica unless
the font is also installed as a Type1 font on the computer system itself.

Check the \Fonts folder under the \Windows folder ... see if you do in fact have
Helvetica installed. It'll be a series of four files with names like HV______.PFM
and a red lowercase "a" icon.

If you don't have the fonts installed, the simplest thing might be to use the
Replace Fonts dialog box to replace them with Arial. Or if Helvetica is a company
standard, somebody really should make sure it's licensed and installed on each
company PC.