Why doesn't WORD have all my fonts in the drop-down?

[Saucer Man]

For example, I have Arial Bold in my fonts folder but WORD only shows Arial.
This is true for other fonts also.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Word shows only the base font, not the bold, italic, or bold italic
variants. Arial Bold is used when you apply Bold formatting to Arial text.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Saucer Man]

Do you know if other programs behave like this also?

Word shows only the base font, not the bold, italic, or bold italic
variants. Arial Bold is used when you apply Bold formatting to Arial text.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I suspect that most do, but I can't answer for high-end page layout and DTP
applications.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

Do you know if other programs behave like this also?

 

[Character]

Do you know if other programs behave like this also?

Every application is different.

All Microsoft applications do exhibit that behaviour. A MAJOR drawback
here is that if the font family doesn't include Bold or Italic
members, Word will create one on the fly - these are artificial and
mechanical - typographic garbage. For instance the faux italic simply
obliques (slants) the basic font; it doesn't create true italic
shapes. While it's POSSIBLE to determine whether Word has used a REAL
font or created a faux version, it's not obvious and takes digging
down into the font properties.

Adobe applications show each available font file separately, and will
only create faux versions if you specifically request them. The
function is made intentionally difficult to invoke.

Corel Draw will use only available fonts.

There's yet another level of font family problems; Unlike MS Operating
systems and applications, Mac OS and Adobe applications can recognize
unlimited variations above and beyond the 4 basic variations (Regular,
Bold, Italic, and Bold Italic). Some fonts that are created with such
other styles are not properly configured for MS Word, and may not work
as intended in Word.

- Character

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

All Microsoft applications do exhibit that behaviour. A MAJOR drawback
here is that if the font family doesn't include Bold or Italic members,
Word will create one on the fly - these are artificial and mechanical -
typographic garbage. For instance the faux italic simply obliques (slants)
the basic font; it doesn't create true italic shapes.

In my experience, recent versions of Word/Publisher do NOT do this, and,
even if they do, the result doesn't print.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Character]

In my experience, recent versions of Word/Publisher do NOT do this, and,
even if they do, the result doesn't print.

Suzanne

Well, yes they do, and they print. (At least in Word 2003)
The obliqued faux italic always does its thing, but the faux bold does
appear to be inconsistent.

I just tried with two different single-file fonts - one of them bolded
and obliqued and properly printed the wysiwyg results. (I've seen some
of the message threads that say that something shows on the screen but
doesn't print - that doesn't make any sense at all unless there are
similarly named fonts resident in the printer)

The second font obliqued and printed, but when clicking on the "B",
all it did was change the spacing between two of the letters VERY
slightly.

The difference between the two fonts (as seen in FontLab) is a flag
that's supposedly for Type 1 fonts [these were truetype] that's
labeled as "ForceBold". It was checked for the font that bolded, not
checked for the other.

Confirming whether or not that's the difference will take some
additional testing and probably some rebooting to clear the font cache.

- Character

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

My LaserJet does have quite a few resident fonts, some of which don't have
bold and italic variants. I think I usually have the printer driver set to
"download all fonts as soft fonts," but if I did not, the result would be
different (and documents would print faster). I can't now recall what
problem it was that had to be solved by changing that setting, so perhaps I
could change it back!

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

In my experience, recent versions of Word/Publisher do NOT do this, and,
even if they do, the result doesn't print.

Suzanne

Well, yes they do, and they print. (At least in Word 2003)
The obliqued faux italic always does its thing, but the faux bold does
appear to be inconsistent.

I just tried with two different single-file fonts - one of them bolded and
obliqued and properly printed the wysiwyg results. (I've seen some of the
message threads that say that something shows on the screen but doesn't
print - that doesn't make any sense at all unless there are similarly
named fonts resident in the printer)

The second font obliqued and printed, but when clicking on the "B", all it
did was change the spacing between two of the letters VERY slightly.

The difference between the two fonts (as seen in FontLab) is a flag that's
supposedly for Type 1 fonts [these were truetype] that's labeled as
"ForceBold". It was checked for the font that bolded, not checked for the
other.

Confirming whether or not that's the difference will take some additional
testing and probably some rebooting to clear the font cache.

- Character