Unwanted font change in custom template

[josiehen]

I use Windows XP and Office 2007, although I save Word documents in a
compatible version (.doc).

I have a downloaded template that I use for transliterating Arabic into
English characters. The default font for the template is Gentium, and the
template has several shortcuts for making underdots and lines over letters.

Today something went wrong and its using a different font when I try to use
my key shortcuts -- I am now getting a font called Simsun. The letters
produced by my shortcuts are correct but the font is wrong. I don't know how
to get my old settings back. I have tried Ctrl-All and changing the default
font to Gentium, but this doesn't work -- I still get Simsun. I have tried
re-downloading my template, opening a blank document, and pasting my working
document in, but still I get Simsun when I use my shortcuts.

I think I remember accidentally pressing some combination of keys that gave
me some chinese characters before this started. So I also got rid of the
Chinese in my language bar via Regional Settings, then re-started my
computer, but that also didn't work.

I have been working on this document for months and this is the first
trouble I've had, but its crippling.

How can I restore my document to its default settings and get rid of
whatever is making it use an unchosen font?

Thank you!

 

[grammatim]

Good luck on getting an answer -- I asked this weeks ago and was urged
to write to the printingfonts newsgroup, which produced no response
either. I find that it happens only for certain characters. I also
find that I can use my keyboard shortcuts to type certain characters
into Find/Replace, but others can only get in by Copy/Paste. And the
problem characters aren't the same ones for the two problems. (I'm in
XP and 2003.)

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Josiehen,

Do you have a link to the template you mentioned?

Are you able to place a document where you're seeing this occur to a blog/website/skydrive etc with a link here?


Do you have the Gentium fonts listed in the Font applet in the Windows control panel? Word does not rely on having a font installed
to display the name of a font in the font dropdown. It shows what was used by the author of the document (or in this case it may be
the template). Open a document that is showing the behavior you described (changing fonts) and then use
Office Button=>Word Options=>Advanced, scroll to the
'Show document content' category and click on [Font Substitution] to see if Windows is substituting the font in Word for one it
can't locate as being active.

As far as switching to other character sets, it's possible that you did a keyboard/language switch depending on what is listed in
the Keyboard language layouts and the language bar settings in the Windows control panel, Regional settings applet as you mentioned.

If you use Office Button=>Word Options

- What are the enabled editing languages in the Popular category?
- Are there any langauge related items listed in the Add-ins category?

It's possible to have language and font rules embedded in Word styles in a template once it's been active in Office 2007.

It's also possible that another add-in or template has also defined keyboard shortcuts that can be interfering with the ones you
expected.

================
I use Windows XP and Office 2007, although I save Word documents in a
compatible version (.doc).

I have a downloaded template that I use for transliterating Arabic into
English characters. The default font for the template is Gentium, and the
template has several shortcuts for making underdots and lines over letters.

Today something went wrong and its using a different font when I try to use
my key shortcuts -- I am now getting a font called Simsun. The letters
produced by my shortcuts are correct but the font is wrong. I don't know how
to get my old settings back. I have tried Ctrl-All and changing the default
font to Gentium, but this doesn't work -- I still get Simsun. I have tried
re-downloading my template, opening a blank document, and pasting my working
document in, but still I get Simsun when I use my shortcuts.

I think I remember accidentally pressing some combination of keys that gave
me some chinese characters before this started. So I also got rid of the
Chinese in my language bar via Regional Settings, then re-started my
computer, but that also didn't work.

I have been working on this document for months and this is the first
trouble I've had, but its crippling.

How can I restore my document to its default settings and get rid of
whatever is making it use an unchosen font?

Thank you!
--
josiehen<<
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[josiehen]

Bob,

Thank you so much for this, your answer opened up several new areas that I
hadn't thought to explore. Unfortunately, I still can't solve the problem.

The site from which I downloaded both the font and the template is:
http://www.mcgill.ca/islamicstudies/students/arabic_unicode_font/

The template did not come with Gentium as the default font, but I changed
that and re-saved the template. The template was designed mainly to have the
shortcut keys programmed that are needed to display commonly-used diacritics.

Gentium is displayed in the font applet, and when I checked Font
Substitution, Windows said that it did not need to substitute any fonts.

My enabled editing languages no longer include the asian ones that I think
may have started the trouble. I have Arabic, English, Spanish, and French.

There are no language-related items in my Add-ins.

I still need to explore keyboard shortcuts. To do this I think I need to go
into Symbols and confirm or re-program my expected shortcuts.

I also played around with Styles a little. When I ask to reveal formatting,
Word is only seeing Gentium, even when it is actually Simsun in my document.
When I ask to compare styles with one letter in Gentium and one in Simsun, it
tells me there is no difference between the selections. Also when I type a
'word' of all u's with overlines for example, then press enter, Word
autocorrects the word to be capitalized -- and that first capital letter
turns to Gentium. But if I type the captal U with overline, I get a font
called MS Mincho. Unlike the difference between Simsun and Gentium, Style
Inspector is recognizing a difference between MS Mincho and Gentium, but I
can't get it to change back to typing Gentium by making Gentium the default
again in style inspector. If I select the affected area in the document and
select Gentium, it will all turn to proper gentium.

I have now gone into Symbols and programmed the shortcut key for A with
overline to be alt+A, which is what the template has programmed already
(although this didn't show up in symbols -- it said that symbol had no
current keys and that alt+A was unassigned). There was not an option to
associate Gentium with this shortcut. My first a-overline came out gentium,
the next few came out Simsun. Reveal Formatting still claims these are all
gentium and that my default is gentium.

Is it strange that when I make changes in shortcut keys or the default font
in styles, I am asked if I want this to be the default for all documents
created with the Normal template? I am supposed to be in the Diacritics.dot
template, but this doesn't show up.

Now many of my diacritics are coming out right, but in some areas I was
getting yet another font, Tahoma, for my d-underdots.

Something is still very strange. I am less panicked now, because even if
everything looks wrong when I type it I can keep highlighting and making it
gentium again. But this really should not be necessary and it makes me
uneasy with integrity and reliability of the whole document.

Thank you again for your suggestions, I really appreciate it.

Josiehen