[Solved] Phosphate Solid font not available

[jmsdh]

Edit: Split from Fonts not available — MrProgrammer 2020-04-01 21:52 UTC

Hi, I hope my question is relevant to this thread. I have OS Mac High Sierra 10.13.6, OO 4.1.5 for Mac. I was experiencing a small messaging issue this morning, not related to OO, so I rebooted my iMac. But, after the reboot, I found I'd lost Phosphate Solid in OO 4.1.5. Instead, Phosphate Inline displays. OO's Format > Character > Font > Phosphate no longer provides the option for Phosphate Solid: the four Phosphate options provided now are Inline, Italic, Bold and Bold Italic. That's all. Phosphate Solid is gone! This makes no sense to me, because my Font Book app shows my Phosphate family includes both Inline and Solid. So I am wondering what is causing this problem, and how can I fix it?

Also, in OO 4.1.5, each one of the font names now has a fat, red, vertical arrow, immediately to the left of each font name, and I don't remember seeing these red arrows before.

Retrieving Phosphate Solid in my OO is a critical issue for me. I have taken two years to design an art series in OO 4.1.5 for Mac that implements many different colors, font types and sizes, paragraphing and formatting, etc. for each page. It's unique and it makes half of a book that, finally, I'm ready to submit for publication. I have a lot of confidence for success (I'm a published writer, this is my first book). I need Phosphate Solid on just one line on one page, but that is very important for the cohesiveness of the work I've done. Phosphate Solid is the one and only font I'm having trouble with, after rebooting this morning.

For the time being, in the absence of Phosphate Solid, I've substituted a different font, which somewhat looks like Phosphate Solid when I manually add certain spacing, and it's... somewhat acceptable. But it's not what I want. I really want to get back Phosphate Solid in my OO. All of the formatting I've done, which is a great amount, was done on OO 4.1.5 for Mac, and of course it's not translatable to Pages or any other app that comes with High Sierra's OS.

Can you help?

[RoryOF]

Is Phosphate Bold by any chance a renamed Phosphate Solid; I know that OpenOffice does not really like fonts with names of intermediate weights. Is Phosphate Solid available in any other application on the Mac? If so, it is still installed. On that application, are Phosphate Solid and Phosphate Bold identical in appearance?

[MrProgrammer]

Hi, I hope my question is relevant to this thread.

The other person used Windows. A solution for Mac may be completely different than one for Windows. I created a new topic for you so that Mac discussion won't go into the first topic. I use a Mac, as shown by my signature. Your signature does not match your post. Please correct that and then I will respond further. Until then you may find ideas in [Tutorial] Mac FAQ.

[jmsdh]

Thanks for your reply, RoryOF. I'm not sure if my reply back to you went through, so I am replying again. Unfortunately, Phosphate Bold is very different looking from Phosphate Solid on my OO: it's much bolder than the Phosphate Solid that I had for two years, far too much so. I made a test by writing the single line that I need, in High Sierra's Pages, then selected Phosphate Solid for the line. On Pages, the style comes fairly close to what I originally had, before rebooting this morning (and by the way, all of my files had already been saved). I then made a new OO 4.1.5 for Mac file, and copied and pasted from Pages. But it looks very wrong, it's too horizontally fat.

Maybe I don't know all of the Phosphate family font options in OO 4.1.5 for Mac? The copy-and-paste from Pages to OO 4.1.5 for Mac is named, "Phosphate-Solid" in OO 4.1.5 for Mac--though that name is otherwise hidden, for example it does not appear under Format > Character > Font > Phosphate.

When I first made this part of the page more than a year ago, I simply highlighted the line and selected the font name, "Phosphate": and that gave me the font I wanted.

Maybe we're making some headway here, I hope so. Thank you. Do you have other suggestions, please?

[jmsdh]

Mr Programmer, Thank you for your offer to help, I have updated my signature. Sorry for that.

[RoryOF]

You should install the testfonts extension; this will tell you what fonts are being used and what fonts are being requested.

https://extensions.openoffice.org/en/project/testfonts

[jmsdh]

Hi RoryOF. I followed your link and clicked for the download. The extension automatically was added into my Documents folder. But when I right-click Open on this Documents file, I'm finding no options in the dialog box which do anything by clicking on them. Also, I have to Force Quit on Open Office to exit the Dialog Box.

As a fallback plan, I re-designed and saved the Documents file which has this one page with the Phosphate problem I've talked about, by revising what was a whole line using Phosphate with a different non-Phosphate font, and by altering another line to try to artistically complement the new non-Phosphate line and the page as a whole. It's a provisional compromise, kind of a stop gap solution. But I really prefer what I had before. I honestly don't understand why Phosphate Solid both 1) disappeared as the default Phosphate option in OO 4.1.5 for Mac, and b) seemingly has disappeared as an option altogether. The trigger for a) and b) happening seems to be having rebooted my computer yesterday morning. I closed all programs and files that were Open, before rebooting.

I think I see what you're getting at with finding out what fonts actually run on my OO 4.1.5 for Mac. Along these lines, I am wondering if the particular font Phosphate Solid, which had simply appeared up to yesterday by the name "Phosphate" in my font list at OO 4.1.5 for Mac, got automatically re-named from rebooting. Why that would happen, I have no idea. My computer skills are competent but non-technical.

Do you think those fat, red, vertical arrows at the left side of each font name in OO 4.1.5 for Mac indicates a setting that I can re-set, such that I can get back the Phosphate font that I was using up to yesterday? I just don't remember seeing those red arrows before, but I wouldn't say I'm sure about that.

After what happened from rebooting yesterday morning, I'm worried what further losses could happen by rebooting again.

I'm very grateful for your help and open to suggestions.

[RoryOF]

On my computer the testfonts extension puts a little toolbar with a fancy red fo logo onto your toolbars - I can't remember if it is floating or docked - mine is docked and has been for years, so I've forgotten its initial condition. You can also access it through /Tools /Add-Ons /test of missing fonts.

I cannot say with any certainty about the fat red arrows beside the fonts on your Mac. Normally a down arrow marker of any sort indicates that clicking on it will reveal more information.

Installing a new version of OpenOffice should not uninstall any fonts installed at system level on a computer.

[jmsdh]

"Installing a new version of OpenOffice should not uninstall any fonts installed at system level on a computer."

Thanks. I've been thinking of that. Installing 4.1.7 for Mac isn't going to uninstall or entail removing 4.1.5 for Mac. I'll try it very soon. Thanks for your time and patience, RoryOF.

[MrProgrammer]

Fonts included with macOS High Sierra says that the font is included with MacOS 10.13. I use MacOS 10.14 and can see Phosphate Solid in the font selection dialog.

My OpenOffice does not show Phosphate Inline, which is another of the choices for the font in Font Book. I note that OpenOffice wants to offer Regular, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic fonts, even for fonts like Tahoma which, in Font Book, do not supply italic fonts. Phosphate is also like this. It supplies only Solid and Inline formats, none of Regular, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic. OpenOffice may not deal with that situation well. I cannot tell you why you previously saw Solid instead of Inline, but I will speculate that OpenOffice can only use one of them since they are missing the Regular, Italic, Bold, and Bold Italic attributes. It might be possible to disable (in Font Book) the Phosphate Inline font in hopes of forcing OpenOffice to choose Phosphate Solid. Or, maybe not if one can only disable Phosphate, not Solid/Inline. Another reboot and maybe Safe Mode might be needed to force OpenOffice to notice this change.[Tutorial] Mac FAQ Q32/A32 has some links to posts on the forum about fonts on Macs.

I am wondering if the particular font Phosphate Solid, which had simply appeared up to yesterday by the name "Phosphate" in my font list at OO 4.1.5 for Mac, got automatically re-named from rebooting.

I have never made any changes to fonts on my Mac, but some of the posts in Q32/A32 suggest that a boot in Safe Mode clears and rebuilds the font cache. But first, I would see if the problem disappears with the Guest User account (Q28/A28). If so, you can at least use that account to finish the final changes to your document. And since a new account would likely behave as the Guest User account does, you could create one and use that to finish the project.

Is Phosphate Bold by any chance a renamed Phosphate Solid

Phosphate Bold is not found in Font Book, the Mac application for managing fonts. So I believe it is not a real font. When selects Phosphate Bold in OpenOffice, the dialog box warns "This font style will be simulated or the closest matching style will be used." Phosphate Solid (as shown above) says "the same font will be used for your printer and your screen."

Installing 4.1.7 for Mac isn't going to uninstall or entail removing 4.1.5 for Mac.

Yes and no. OpenOffice.app is normally placed in the /Applications directory. Q03/A03 describes the standard method of installing OpenOffice, which will overwrite OpenOffice.app in that directory. If you do that, you will lose 4.1.5. However you can copy OpenOffice 4.1.7 to some other directory, say your personal Applications directory "/Users/YourID/Applications" instead of the system one. In Finder, use Go → Home. If you don't see an Applications folder there, you can create one. Then right-click → Copy "OpenOffice" and paste it into your personal directory. Now you can launch 4.1.5 from the system directory or 4.1.7 from your personal directory. You could anchor either or both in the dock (Q56/A56), though with both there you will have to remember which is which.

If this solved your problem please go to your first post use the Edit button and add [Solved] to the start of the title. You can select the green checkmark icon at the same time.

[jmsdh]

Mr Programmer, I see what went wrong, and how to correct it. I've got everything back now, the way I wanted it, and I saved all of the appropriate files. A thousand pardons, and so much thanks for help and patience from you and from RoryOF. I'll be a lot more careful, the next time an OO question comes up before I come to the Forum. This problem is solved.

[MrProgrammer]

Mr Programmer, I see what went wrong, and how to correct it. I've got everything back now, the way I wanted it

I would very much like to know what the source of the problem was, and how you corrected it, so that we can help others who might report a similar problem in the future. This is a user-to-user forum (no developers here), and it is only successful if we share information. I did so with you, and now it is your turn to share with me.

[jmsdh]

Mr Programmer, The source of the problem was that my .odt file incorrectly displayed one line on one page as Phosphate Inline, instead of Phosphate Solid, after I rebooted my iMac. (I had saved the file before rebooting, and had closed all programs, which I always do before rebooting. I regularly and routinely press Command + S any file that I open, even if I'm not aware of having made a change--I press Command + S in Open files, just out of an abundance of precaution.) Seeing the "change out" in font, I wanted to fix it (change it back to the way it was), so I highlighted the incorrectly formatted line. Next, I went into Format > Character > Font, and selected Phosphate Solid for the highlighted area. But, I could see immediately that this selection still did not make things right: the size of the letters was much larger than they should be and they didn't, at that time, even look like the Phosphate Solid font which had been on this line in this file (which is 28 pages total), for about two years. I inspected the whole file, and no other letters, spacing etc in the file had changed.

To give you a context, my .odt file is an integral part of an art project I have worked on for two years. It is finalized and I am nearing the stage of seeking publication. My .odt file utilizes very many different fonts, special characters and colors; and font, spacing and paragraph sizes.

In retrospect, it seems to me the reboot brought about not one, but two errors for this line of text: 1) Phosphate Inline, instead of Phosphate Solid; 2) the size of the font was considerably larger than the size of the font I had saved before rebooting; so much so that it appeared misshapen to me, and I failed to recognize with certainty what font it even was. Very honestly, the inability to visually decipher what appeared before me was unnerving, since I have vested much work and ambition in this project. That is when I went to the present OO Forum.

Your visual aid in one of your posts helped me to see that problem 2) obtained, in addition to 1). Once I understood that the Phosphate Solid which displayed for me was in much too big of a size, BUT is the font itself after all, I highlighted, chose the font size I need, then I could see the line was back to what I originally had in font AND font size. I Saved the file. Problem solved.

Thank you for your help and patience