fonts change in graphs within PPPT

[Echo S]

A couple of quick follow up questions for you... (incidentally, I am
creating
these charts directly in PPT, not opening into XLS)

(1) I have noticed that on the text for these problem slides, there is an
underscore before the font name... do you know anything about this? Does
that mean the font is missing? (Font says "_Custom Font") It knows
enough
to put the name in there... but there is an underscore before it, which is
strange.

Sorry, not a clue.

But it's a good observation, and I think you're right to be suspicious of
it.

(2) I can replace the font in the text of the doc using the Format|Replace
Fonts function, do you know of anything like that for charts? (A trick for
universally replacing fonts in a chart?)

Unfortunately, Format|Replace Fonts doesn't work for charts. (I sure wish it
did!) I don't know of anything that would help with this, either, unless
maybe one of the code gurus here has some ideas.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Thanks for your comment.

Yes, I did install the fonts (they are in the fonts folder) and I can format
text in this font. However, as I mentioned in my follow up post to Echo, the
font name has an underscore before it ("_Custom Font") which is leading me to
believe that it is not on my machine (none of the fonts in the fonts folder
have an underscore before them) and that possibly my client did not send me a
complete list of font files...

Let me know if you know anything about this underscore before the font name...

Strictly a wild guess but ...

At some point, a routine to convert between mac and pc font names may have replaced
spaces in the name with underscores. It may be that somewhere along the line, some
routine didn't anticipate a name like " NameWithSpaceAtBeginning" and got confused.

You might want to download the MS Font Properties Extension
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/FreeToolsOverview.mspx

and see what it's got to say about the font.

Thanks!!

Thanks for getting back to me.

Good suggestion on Tools|Options|Edit -- I tried that first to no avail...

The font is actually a custom font that I received from my client and
downloaded onto my PC.

Downloaded, good.
But did you install it as well? Is it in your Fonts folder, for example?

If you select some text in PPT, can you format it in this font? If not, it's
probably not properly installed.

What type of font is it?

It changes to Arial (the font I usually use) when I

edit the chart. I did not set up the original (custom font) charts, they
look fine when I receive the doc, but then when I edit them, they change to
Arial. Strangely, when I send it back to my client, they see the Arial font,
but when they double click on the chart, the font reverts back to custom
font.

Any idea what might be causing that? Sound like a problem with the custom
font? Any suggestions / thoughts would be appreciated.

P.S. Your website is great. I picked up a couple of tips there that will
be very helpful!

:

Hm. What's the particular font in the chart, and what does it change to when
you edit?

Oh, also maybe try Tools|Options|Edit (in PPT, not in MSGraph) and uncheck
"new charts take on PPT fonts." Not positive that will do the trick, but
it's worth a try.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP] http://www.echosvoice.com
What's new in PPT 2007? http://www.echosvoice.com/2007.htm
Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/powerpointannoy/
PPTLive! Sept 17-20, 2006 http://www.pptlive.com

I am having a similar problem but the solutions that worked for jreish
didn't
work for me either. I have a particular font in several charts and when I
edit the charts, the font changes. It appear it is changing to a default,
but I cannot find where this default is set to change it. Font size is
not a
problem, it is over 8 point...


:

I'm having the same problem that jreish had but the solution didn't work
for
me. I'm using Arial and when I'm in a chart, everything looks fine and
the
font specified is Arial. As soon as I click out of the chart, the font
gets
ugly. It's fine when I go back into the chart. The font size I'm using
is
12. Any idea why this might be happening?

:

Thanks Echo, yes that pretty much fixed my problems. It was a pain to
have to
go back and change all the graphs, but worth it since they now behave
more
like I want and expect and don't keep changing appearance. This fix
also
cleared up, for the most part, some other problems I was having with
font
appearance that must have been due to the same small font size issue.

Many thanks for your quick and clear response!!

:

Okay. I think the small font size is the issue, but it sounds as if
you'd be
able to use larger font sizes if they were, well, true to size.

There is a combination of things that makes font in charts seem not
to be
the correct size. Here's how to fix it.

First, open the chart, select the chart area and choose Format Chart
Area.
Then, on the Font tab, deselect "auto scale." Then click on the slide
to
close the font.

Then right-click the chart and choose Format Object. On the Size tab,
deselect Loct Aspect Ratio and then type in scale percentages 100% x
100%. I
bet this will make your chart a different size than it is now, but
never
fear, we'll take care of that in a minute.

Now double-click the chart to open it again. Select the Chart Area
and
choose Format Chart Area. Go to the Font tab. Change the font to 12
or 14 pt
and click OK. Then adjust the size of the chart by dragging on the
herringboned edges. You want to resize the chart while it's
activated,
rather than resizing by dragging edges of the chart on the slide.
This will
help keep your chart and fonts from becoming distorted.

So, to summarize: turn off font autoscaling and adjust chart size
when the
chart is opened.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com

Echo, yes these are small font sizes. If I make them larger they
are way
too
big for the slide, though. Even though I have the font set at 7 or
8 it
appears equal in size to the same font in a PPT textbox at size 14
or so.

If I make the fonts in the graph bigger then only every
<i>other</i> label
on a bar graph displays (another common problem I run into -- all
the
labels
show when I am in the graph but when I click out of the graph back
to PPT
only the 1st, 3rd, 5th etc labels show. That's why I am making the
fonts
small in the first place, to get all the labels to show).

:

Steve's suggestion is a good one -- in fact, it's what I was just
going
to
suggest.

Also, what size is the font? I think Excel had issues with really
small
fonts (6, 7, 8 pt) changing, and it wouldn't surprise me to see
the same
happen in PPT charts.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com

I am having a problem creating graphs in PPT and having the fonts
within
the
graphs stay as I set them. I open the graph, set the font for a
given
axis/field/whatever, and the font changes to what I want (Arial,
nothing
fancy), but when I exit the graph sometimes (not always) the
font
magically
changes in appearance! It has serifs and appears to be in the
Times
family
or
something similar. If I open the graph again -poof!- the font
appears
on
screen in Arial again, and if I click the properties of that
item it
shows
that Arial is still the font. So it does not appear to be
changing the
font
setting itself just the way the font appears.

Anyone else run across this, and any advice for fixing it?
Thanks.

-----------------------------------------
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

 

[Guest]

Have yet to try out this, but.....

In my case a user (alfa) experience this behavior.
Inserting a simple chart looks fine when in chart-editing mode, but
distorted when returning to word-editing mode.
if alfa saves a word file with only a simple chart, and send it by mail to
me, I see the same distortion when i open it.
Now: if i doubleclick on the chart to edit it, it magically appears correct.
and continues to do so if i click outside the chart area to return to
standard word editing mode.
So... does this not indicate that this might have somthing to do with how
word/powerpoint handles fonts. (by the way; alfa get the distortion in both
word and powerpoint)
could this result from a "faulty" registry setting? like "fontmapping" or
"resilliency" or somthing else?
anyway, i know the behavior will be corrected if the user profile is
reset... but i dont want to do that. and I am sure alfa dont want to adjust
every chart he uses.
So in short: i would like to find out the exact cause of the problem.

So you turned off the font autoscale, you resized the chart to 100% x 100%,
and you opened it and resized using the edges while it's open? In that case,
are you using a wide screen? If so, update your video card drivers.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP] http://www.echosvoice.com
Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/powerpointannoy/
How to Prevent PowerPoint Overload (March 23 webcast)
http://tinyurl.com/bp2h8

Has any one ever run across an issue where this did not fix this behavior?
I've walked through this fix a hundred times with no luck. I've even
uninstalled/reinstaled office. Upgraded from Office XP to 2003, and I
still
get this behavior.

In Short.

If I am "editing" a graph, the fonts are fine. I soon as I switch back to
the slide, my fonts look like they get bolded, squished together and
enlarged. I have been at this one issue for 4 days with no luck. Its
driving me nuts.

Okay. I think the small font size is the issue, but it sounds as if you'd
be
able to use larger font sizes if they were, well, true to size.

There is a combination of things that makes font in charts seem not to be
the correct size. Here's how to fix it.

First, open the chart, select the chart area and choose Format Chart
Area.
Then, on the Font tab, deselect "auto scale." Then click on the slide to
close the font.

Then right-click the chart and choose Format Object. On the Size tab,
deselect Loct Aspect Ratio and then type in scale percentages 100% x
100%. I
bet this will make your chart a different size than it is now, but never
fear, we'll take care of that in a minute.

Now double-click the chart to open it again. Select the Chart Area and
choose Format Chart Area. Go to the Font tab. Change the font to 12 or 14
pt
and click OK. Then adjust the size of the chart by dragging on the
herringboned edges. You want to resize the chart while it's activated,
rather than resizing by dragging edges of the chart on the slide. This
will
help keep your chart and fonts from becoming distorted.

So, to summarize: turn off font autoscaling and adjust chart size when
the
chart is opened.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com

Echo, yes these are small font sizes. If I make them larger they are
way
too
big for the slide, though. Even though I have the font set at 7 or 8 it
appears equal in size to the same font in a PPT textbox at size 14 or
so.

If I make the fonts in the graph bigger then only every <i>other</i>
label
on a bar graph displays (another common problem I run into -- all the
labels
show when I am in the graph but when I click out of the graph back to
PPT
only the 1st, 3rd, 5th etc labels show. That's why I am making the
fonts
small in the first place, to get all the labels to show).

:

Steve's suggestion is a good one -- in fact, it's what I was just
going
to
suggest.

Also, what size is the font? I think Excel had issues with really
small
fonts (6, 7, 8 pt) changing, and it wouldn't surprise me to see the
same
happen in PPT charts.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com

I am having a problem creating graphs in PPT and having the fonts
within
the
graphs stay as I set them. I open the graph, set the font for a
given
axis/field/whatever, and the font changes to what I want (Arial,
nothing
fancy), but when I exit the graph sometimes (not always) the font
magically
changes in appearance! It has serifs and appears to be in the Times
family
or
something similar. If I open the graph again -poof!- the font
appears
on
screen in Arial again, and if I click the properties of that item it
shows
that Arial is still the font. So it does not appear to be changing
the
font
setting itself just the way the font appears.

Anyone else run across this, and any advice for fixing it? Thanks.