Fonts does not show in MS Word (admin user)

Using Fonts
1

I have a strange problem with MS Office on my Mac. Maybe someone can help me.

Setup:

  • iMac (Retina 5K, 27", 2020, Intel i5)
  • Mac OS 11.1
  • MS Word 16.77.1
  • Adobe Creative Cloud
  • Glyphs 3

Two users set up (Admin, Guest):

  • On the Admin user, all the programs mentioned above are installed.
  • On the Guest user, only the macOS standard programs plus MS Office for testing are installed.

Problem: With installations on the Admin user: All my font file names start with “RB.” However, none of my fonts appear in the MS font menu (Word, PowerPoint) under the Admin user.
If I change the font file name to something that starts with an “A” or “E” (haven’t tested more yet), the font file appears in the MS font menu. Names starting with “S” or “T” are also not displayed. Not just my fonts—Roboto, for example, is also not displayed (it also starts with “R”).

With installations on the Guest user: No problems.

Does anyone have any idea what I should look for or do?

1 Like
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This is a common issue in MS Office apps (at least in my experience), that only half the installed fonts show up in the menus. Sometimes, you can manually type in the full name and it works, even though the UI doesn’t recognise them; other times, that doesn’t work either.

I’m not sure there’s anything much you can do about it – it’s just one in a very long list of bugs in Office apps that will probably never be fixed.

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Thanks for your reply, Janus. MS Word remains a mystery… :smile:

On a clean system, without the installation of other apps, it seems to run better. Just like on my guest user account.

I had the feeling that the combination of Adobe apps and their included fonts, along with MS and its bundled fonts, might be causing conflicts. But I can’t really confirm that.

Has anyone else had similar experiences and perhaps found a solution?

4

It seems that for some reason MS Office on Mac OS prioritizes some fonts over others. I guess it might have something to do with the number of fonts installed on your mac.

The only solution that I have found is to manually prioritize desired fonts through Terminal. See “To set prioritized fonts” info on the following page:

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Thank you, Mika, I’ll take a look at that.
I just wonder how many installed fonts count as ‘too many’? :smile: I suspect graphic designers and type designers unfortunately have a slight tendency towards having ‘too many’ installed fonts.

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I have exactly two user fonts installed, and this is only because I need to use them on my local server. The rest lands in the Adobe fonts folder.

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Okay, I just tested it. That’s exactly the problem—too many active fonts. :sweat_smile: Thanks for your help