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How do I disable fonts from appering in Word's font menu?

Anonymous
2013-02-17T14:55:15+00:00

I am using Word 2011 with a MacBookPro under OS 10.8.2. The font menu is cluttered with many fonts which I rarely use. I opened the Mac Font Book application, and disabled many of the fonts. They became greyed out, showing they were disabled. But when I re-opened Word, those fonts were still listed in the font menu. Does Font Book not work with Word? Is there some way to disable, and unshow, fonts in Word's font menu, without throwing away the fonts completely?

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-02-18T05:42:50+00:00

    Phillip gave you the solution, he did not tell you why.

    Word does not read OS X's font list, it maintains its own, which it rebuilds from OS X's list, each time Word starts after a computer restart.  Phillip's utility blows away both lists, so forcing both to rebuild.

    My solution is "Don't use the Font Menu in Word."  I never do.  I customise Word's formatting styles for all the formats that I use.  Each of these styles specifies a font.  I never need to look at the font menu: I know that if the style name is right, all of the formatting (including the font...) for that paragraph is correct.  I don't need to look: in fact, I don't display either the font name or the font size on my toolbar, because I never need to know it.

    Realistically, I use only about 25 styles.  I might create one or two specials for a particular document, but that's rare.  Many of my fonts were set in 1989 and I have not looked at them since.  With one exception: I changed all of Arial to Calibri when Calibri came out, because it's nicer on-screen :-)

    Cheers

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-02-17T20:16:41+00:00

    You need t use a utility called Font Nuke to remove the Font cache and have Word/Excel/PowerPoint build the remaining fonts. that have been disabled. If you want them removed permanently go back to FontBook and remove them. I would advise moving them to their own fold the creating a zip archive and save that  and delete the folder where you put the files in. Caution in Removing fonts make sure its Fonts that neither the system or any applications use them as default fonts. could cause application crashes or act strangely.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-02-18T16:31:38+00:00

    Hello John,

    Thank you for your clear explanation. And an excellent suggestion about using "Styles" instead of picking fonts manually from the Word menu. I will set up some frequently used styles to do that.

    So, Word does not read the Mac's font list! My love-hate relationship with Word continues. It is THE most frustrating application, because it does things in inexplicable ways. But whenever I try a different word-processing application, it lacks something I need. So back to Word. Oh well.

    Best regards,

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-02-17T21:40:53+00:00

    You need t use a utility called Font Nuke to remove the Font cache and have Word/Excel/PowerPoint build the remaining fonts. that have been disabled. If you want them removed permanently go back to FontBook and remove them. I would advise moving them to their own fold the creating a zip archive and save that  and delete the folder where you put the files in. Caution in Removing fonts make sure its Fonts that neither the system or any applications use them as default fonts. could cause application crashes or act strangely.

    Hello Phillip,

    Thank you for your response. But can it be that a separate utility is required to get Font Book to do what it's supposed to do?

    There are 2 font folders in my Library folder (the one at the root level). One is called simply "Fonts", and the other is called "Fonts Disabled". I had thought that the Disabled fonts were the ones that Font Book disabled. But that can't be right.

    In my "Disabled Fonts" folder is a font called Brush Script. In the "Fonts" folder, Brush Script does NOT appear. However, within that "Fonts" folder is another folder called "Microsoft", and THAT folder does have Brush Script. Apparently, that folder's version of Brush Script is being used by the system. Needless to say, Word shows the Brush Script in its menu.

    It seems to me that Apple has dropped the ball on making font manipulation intuitive, or even understandable.

    Regards,

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