[OS X TeX] Font cache problems following Office installation

[David Messerschmitt]

>
> It's a bit strange that TeXShop shows a behaviour which Preview does  
> not show. Both are based on the same frameworks Apple delivers with  
> Mac OS X. Maybe it's chance that pollutes the application. The  
> applications seem to take the glyphs they are displaying from a font  
> cache. I don't know how it works, how it can happen that obviously  
> glyphs from different fonts can be mixed up since every font used  
> has a unique identifier and a cache is an organised heap. Skim is  
> also based on these Apple frameworks.
>
> Adobe products use their own software routines. The PDF displayer of  
> TeXworks uses a Public Domain software.

This pathological behavior is intermittent, and it is possible that I  
didn't invoke Preview often enough to see it. If MS broke Preview for  
everybody installing Office 2008 that would be nasty.

>
>
> The MS reference you supplied tells that the MS installer would have  
> put the MS fonts into the Disabled folders if it would have found  
> them duplicates of files in the Fonts folders. Why did this fail?
>


The MS installer does leave duplicate fonts in /Library/Fonts and / 
Library/Fonts/Microsoft; for example, Times New Roman appears both  
places. However, the two instances are different in that the original  
is a TrueType font with four .ttf files and Microsoft's replacement is  
a single Suitcase file. That is presumably why Font Book recognizes  
the duplication and claims to be able to shut one off, but apparently  
Texshop preview can't recognize the difference nor the fact that one  
has been turned off by Font Book. Oh the joys of user debugging.

-dave


David Messerschmitt
Roger Strauch Professor Emeritus
Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
University of Californa at Berkeley
     and
Visiting Professor
Helsinki University of Technology
Software Business Laboratory
    and
Visiting Researcher
SETI Institute




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