Fonts

[sev-engel]

With a brand new installed xpsp3/office 2007 I cannot install some fonts with
the following error messages depending on whether I install them via font
managament or just double click the font file:

....this font cannot get installed. It may be damaged. Request a new file at
your supplier's.

This file is no valid font file.

Now, these very same files DO install on another xpsp3/office 2007 pc, they
can't be damaged hence, right? Also I did obtain new files from the
manufacturer but the error message remains the same.

Thanks for your help.

Siggi Engelbrecht

 

[grammatim]

This doesn't seem to have anything to do with Word, but did you try
right-clicking on the font name and choosing Install?

Also, have you extracted all the fonts from the Zip file you
downloaded them as?

 

[sev-engel]

Well, I am aware of the limited significance of this to word issues, but
since posts in other newsgroups failed, I decided to give it a try at least.
As to the zip files, yes, I extracetd all and tried to install all of thzem
or just one after the next but it all failed. Apparently, xpsp3 expects some
statement in the font file or reacts prohibitively when some piece of
information is missing - although the files themselves apparently are NOT
damaged (since they work on older pc's (still running xpsp3, btw).

--sev

 

[Character]

With a brand new installed xpsp3/office 2007 I cannot install some fonts with
the following error messages depending on whether I install them via font
managament or just double click the font file:

...this font cannot get installed. It may be damaged. Request a new file at
your suppliers.

This file is not a valid font file.

Now, these very same files DO install on another xpsp3/office 2007 pc, they
can't be damaged hence, right? Also I did obtain new files from the
manufacturer but the error message remains the same.

Thanks for your help.

Siggi Engelbrecht

A better forum for this question would be
microsoft.public.word.printingfonts

Whether here or there, please give some additional information:
Specifically,
What kind of fonts are they (.ttf, .pfb/.pfm, .otf or other)
A couple of names of the fonts and their vendors.
Exactly how are you installing them? XP has no built-in font
management - are you using a third-party font manager or installing
via control panel/fonts/file/install new font or just dragging the
font files into C:/windows/fonts?

- Character

 

[sev-engel]

Thanks for that hint towards the printingfonts discussion group, I was not
aware of it and will cross-post this message.

As to your questions: All fonts that would not become installed were .otf
type fonts (actually give aways from Adobe upon registration of CS3). They
include the GaramondPremierPro and the HypatiaSansPro families. Installation
was tried via Start>System>Fonts (I am translating this here from German and
hope that you get an idea of what I mean since I do not remember the precise
English denominations). In the fonts directory you have the option to
"install new fonts". Upon doing so, I get an error message like "file
damaged" - which clearly is not the case since exactly these files behave
well on my other xpsp3 pc. Upon double clicking the font file directly,
"working fonts" show up in a window just to indicate how they look, but the
"damaged" fonts are then said to be an invalid font file. Now I wonder what
that "invalidity" is due to, since, as I mentioned, these very same font
files do well on other pc's. I should like to mention that I obtained new
font files from Adobe ( assuming that their use might be restricted somehow),
but to absolutely no avail: They behave exactly as the "older" ones (and are
identical, binary wise).

 

[Character]

sev-engel wrote:


There is a known problem with certain video cards that can cause this
problem. It's particularly prevalent on certain NVidea cards,
particularly the GeForce 9100. This also explains why you're having
different results on different pc's. The problem affects Type 1 fonts
and Type 1 flavor Open Type fonts such as all of Adobe's OTF fonts.

There was a very long thread on this topic in some font or typography
forum late last year or early this year, but right now I can't find it

Here is one solution that has worked:

===============================================================
Good news. Nvidia has identified the problem and provided a fix. The
way it was explained to me, Windows expects the device driver to be a
certain size (maximum). In this case, the nvidia driver is slightly
larger than expected. A simply registry entry will resolve the issue
in WinXP (the issue doesn't occur in Vista).

To resolve the problem, do the following:

Open the registry editor (regedit)

Navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session
Manager\Memory Management

Add a new REG_DWORD entry called SessionImageSize with a value
(decimal) of 20

Reboot

====================================================================


It's also always a good idea to have the latest drivers for your video
card - from either your pc manufacturer or, preferably the video card
maker.

 

[Character]

Here's a link to the adobe typography forum thread that identifies and
solves the problem - most of the time.

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/395613

An alternate way to install the fonts appears to be going into safe
mode and installing the fonts from there

- Character.

 

[sev-engel]

Well,

apparently installing fonts in safe mode - even if possible - does NOT allow
to use those in normal mode. As outlined in the related post, however, the
problem can be solved by editing the registry to the effect of allocating
more space or similar (I am not an expert) to the graphic card driver,
especially the nvidia drivers.

Thanks for that hint towards the Adobe thread, which provides quite some
background as to this issue.

 

[sev-engel]

Hi,

this was precisely the solution to the problem. Thanks a lot for that hint.

I should like to comment in this context that "systems" in general and
os/periphery especially get close to uselessness if problems like the one at
hand here arise.

I do not see any real chance for normal customers to solve such a problem
which requires sophisticated configuration deep in the registry. And I wonder
who figured out this fix - that must have been pretty much an expert.

The problem, imho, was that complex that I never would have thought in terms
of graphic card driver etc. as source of the problem - after all, just them
fonts would not install with a totally misleading error message! And, in
fact, they even DID install, since after editing the registry, all fonts I
had tried to install before in vain were there and I got messages like "if
you want to install this font please remove its older version first".

Updating the graphic drivers in my case isn't that easy, btw, since I am
running a McBook Air under xp and updates apparently must be handled by the
fruit company, which may not care about this.

Siggi Engelbrecht