My client cannot open most Microsoft Word documents created by another user without seeing corrupted or missing fonts. He is running Office 365, Microsoft Word 2016 for PC.



My first inclination was to reinstall the Windows 10 default fonts—something we are working on with certain problems.

If reinstalling the Windows 10 fonts doesn't solve the problem, is there a step pertaining to Microsoft Word or Office 365 that should be taken?

That suggests one of three things:
1. The "documents created by another user" are corrupt;
2. Your client's Office installation is faulty; or
3. The "documents created by another user" use fonts that are not installed on your client's system.

You need to narrow down the problem.

Does your client have problems with all documents, or only "documents created by another user"?

If it affects all documents, the problem lies with your client's system and the first thing to do would be to repair the Office installation.

If it affects only "documents created by another user", do the documents contain only the standard Windows/Office fonts (e.g. are those fonts installed on both systems)? If not, have the user either revert to the standard Windows/Office fonts or at least embed the fonts in the documents (font license permitting).

If the "documents created by another user" contain only the standard Windows/Office fonts, those documents may have acquired some form of corruption. Corrupt documents can often be 'repaired' by inserting a new, empty, paragraph at the very end, copying everything except that new paragraph to a new document based on the same template (headers & footers may need to be copied separately), closing the old document and saving the new one over it. Obviously, this is best done at the source. And, if the corrupt documents are all based on the same template, that template may be the source of the corruption, in which case it, too, needs to go through the above repair process.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Sorry for the delay in response as my client has been indisposed.

This morning, we did an Online Repair of Microsoft Office 365, but problems still prevail. I am attaching a .docx document that opens fine on my computer but not on my client's. I'm also attaching a partial screen shot of how the document appears on his computer.

Also attached is a partial screenshot of a letterhead .docx document that appears incorrectly on his computer.

Before I did the Online Repair of Microsoft Office 365, I tried to Restore Windows 10 default font settings on the Fonts Control Panel, but the restoration did not start. I'm not sure if this restoration function would be helpful as I don't know whether it refers to entire fonts inventory in Windows 10 or just the chosen default font or fonts.

I would appreciate any thoughts you might have.

Attached Images

	Screen Shot 2018-04-17 at 11.15.12 AM.png (72.1 KB, 30 views)
	Screen Shot 2018-04-17 at 11.45.25 AM.png (116.4 KB, 31 views)

Attached Files

Ishimoto_Norm_Edit_Letter.docx (171.3 KB, 10 views)

Since the two screenshots appear to be from entirely different documents, it's impossible for me to see what 'font corruption' might have occurred. That said, it seems one system might be configured for English (US) use and the other for Japanese use, in which case some of your issues might be due to that. A simple workaround might be for each user to save the documents as PDFs and exchange those rather than the documents themselves.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

I just now learned that the problem is display screen-only and that all of the documents print out correctly. In view of this, it seems that it's a screen font issue.

In view of this, do you have a suggestion as to what to do next?

There is no such thing as a 'screen font' - the screen uses the same fonts the document does. The system may have a faulty display driver, though, that isn't rendering the fonts correctly. The solution for that would be to update the display driver with the latest version from the manufacturer's website.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Thanks for your response. We have noted that both Microsoft Word and Acrobat Reader display the same document incorrectly.

Does https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...-in-windows-10 provide the proper instructions for reinstalling the Display Driver?

That should work - or you can just visit the display maker's website and download the driver from there.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

We have updated the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 745 graphics card drivers. We also uninstalled and reinstalled the Generic PnP Monitor driver, and there are still problems.

When opening the attached Microsoft Word document, it shows up perfectly in Microsoft Word 365 on my Mac but not on my client's computer. In his Word 365 document in Windows 10, there are many missing words and phrases, but surprisingly the words that do appear are showing in the correct Times New Roman font.

A few days ago, we did an Online Repair of Microsoft Office 365. Would a complete reinstall of Microsoft Office 365 possibly make a difference?

Since we have essentially reinstalled the display adapters, it seems to me there is some sort of font issue related to displaying the fonts correctly on the display. Do you think there could be some sort of font corruption issue? If so, how can we reinstall all of the Windows 10 and/or Microsoft Office 365 fonts?

I appreciate your continuing help.

Attached Files

Ishimoto_Norm_Edit_Letter.docx (171.3 KB, 9 views)

In post #2 I asked whether the fonts concerned are installed on the other computer. Given that you've now introduced a Mac into the scenario, are you sure the documents use only Microsoft fonts? If not and the faulty display is related to such non-Microsoft fonts, you have two choices:
1. Use only Microsoft fonts; or
2. As indicated in post #2, embed the fonts in the document (font license permitting).

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

The documents in question were not created on my Mac computer. And these same documents open correctly on my Windows 10 PC as well as on my Mac.

Some of the problematic documents (for my client but not for others) were created on his own PC, and others were created by other Microsoft Word users, including the one I attached from the University of California, Berkeley. This particular document opens fine on both my Mac and PC.

My client has no control over how Word documents are created by others who send them to him. Since I can open these documents correctly on both a Mac and on a Windows PC I have to conclude that there is something wrong on my client's computer.

Unfortunately, figuring out what is wrong and how to fix it has proven to be very difficult. I appreciate your help and trust that you and/or others can offer more suggestions.

At this stage, I'd suggest your client try opening the document(s) on another computer with the same regional & language settings. If the document(s) display correctly there, the problem may be with the Windows installation itself. In that case, try running:
SFC /scannow
from a command prompt with Admin priviledges.

If that doesn't resolve things, and the errant PC worked OK previously, restoring the OS to a date when it did work, using System Restore, may suffice. If that doesn't apply or otherwise resolve things, a complete uninstall of Office (see Option 2 at: https://support.office.com/en-us/art...c-2fdf5dbf61d8), followed by a reinstall may be called for. And, if that doesn't work, a repair install of Windows 10 may be required. See: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...e-upgrade.html

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]