Seemingly non-corrupt Postscript Type I fonts crash MS-Word

[DominikHoffmann]

Ever since I installed Mac OS X on my G4 I have been having problems with my legacy Adobe Type I Postscript fonts. Since installing the system from scratch a second time, the system at least recognized the fonts in /Library/Fonts/. I also observed that some of the fonts simply dragged over from the old Mac OS 9 Fonts folder wouldn't work, but that I instead had to get them from the original floppy disks, Type On Call CD ROM or downloaded files.

One font family has continued to give me headaches: Adobe's Minion and the associated Expert Collection. Trying to print out a document generated on Mac OS 9 caused Microsoft Word (v. X) to crash.

I have since come across the MacAddict feature article "50 Biggest Mac OS X Bugs" in the August 2002 issue. There is a paragraph which appears to describe my problem:

25. Font Difficulties

PROBLEM: My application crashes as it's starting up or whenever I try to change fonts.

SOLUTION: Your problem may be a corrupt font, which can cause all kinds of problems in Microsoft Word, Adobe Illustrator, and other apps that check foor fonts as they launch.

To fix wayward fonts, start by removing third-party fonts from the Fonts folder in your Library folder (or the Fonts folder in your home folder's Library folder), then restarting and testing the app. If it still crashes, remove the nonessential fonts from that same Fonts folder, as well as from the Fonts folder inside your Mac OS 9 System folder (which Mac OS X also uses).

You can use a utility like DiamondSoft's Font Reserve ($89.95 electronic version; demo on the Disc [accompanying the August 2002 edition]) or MorrisonSoftDesign's FontDoctor X ($69.99; demo on the Disc) to track down the corruption. If your problem is with Office, download the latest versions of Microsoft's fonts from http://www.microsoft.com/typography/free.htm .

I checked my fonts with the Demo of FontDoctor X, which can locate the corrupted font, but not repair it. I replaced the one font it found with a new copy, with which FontDoctor X then had no problem.

Microsoft Word v. X still crashes, when I try to print, and a file opens in the Console utility with a full-fledged crash report, for whose interpretation I lack the expertise.

Of course going out and spending $169 on Adobe's new OpenType Minion collection would be one way to fix this. While I may eventually do that, I don't have room for that in my budget right now.

Any comments woudl be appreciated.