Word 2013 no longer supports the following font types:
- Bitmap
- Printer
- Adobe Type 1
- CFF/Type 2
- TTO
- .FON
The good news is that, from an eXtyles perspective, Word and Windows don't have to support these older font formats in terms of rendering; they just have to provide eXtyles the correct RTF indicating the name of the font and the offset of the character into the font.
During eXtyles processing (including Activation and Export), all special characters are mapped through eXtyles font mapping files to Unicode values, even if the fonts are not installed on the system. Then one of two things will happen:
- If your eXtyles config.ice file has OPEN TYPE=YES, then these Unicode values are then re-inserted back into the Word document, leaving Word to render those characters in the currently selected font of the paragraph. Even if Word is unable to display the correct glyph, however, the Unicode value will be correctly preserved through Export.
- If your eXtyles config.ice file has OPEN TYPE=NO, then these Unicode values are re-converted to traditional font/offset values and re-inserted back into the Word document using only fonts installed on the system. If no font is found for the specified Unicode value, then a Unicode value is re-inserted in the Word document, and Word will render it in the font of the current paragraph.
What this means is that eXtyles is the most effective tool available to remap special characters from outdated fonts to new fonts or Unicode offsets.
Historical Note: When eXtyles was first built, Unicode was still quite new and the only way to handle special characters was the OPEN TYPE=NO mode. As Unicode and Open Type fonts have spread through the years, OPEN TYPE=YES was added and it is now recommended as the default mode of operation for eXtyles. Please consult eXtyles support if you would like to have this value checked on updated for your configuration.