Knowledge Base: Fixes and Workarounds – Word for Mac

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This issue has been fixed in version 16.33

After upgrading to Catalina (OSX 15.0), Word crashes when creating or opening a doc. This is an

issue caused by the WordRake add-in.

To address this, WordRake has released an update that you can download here. Alternatively,

you can just remove the add-in to fix the issue.

This issue has been fixed in version 16.11.1 or higher. To get the latest update, open an Office

for Mac application, go to the Help > Check for Updates menu, and follow the instructions in the

AutoUpdate app.

Knowledge Base: Fixes and Workarounds – Word for Mac

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UC San Diego Health Information Services

Issues affecting Word for Mac features and add-ins

If you're using Office for Mac version 15 or lower (builds < 16.16.xxxx) and you try to open an

Office saves the name of the font in the document when a font is applied to the content. This

font name could be different between macOS and non-macOS apps because of the values

defined by the font creators in font tables. As apps try to load fonts using a name saved on a

different platform (i.e. Word for Microsoft Windows tries to load font using a name that was

written by Word for Mac), it may cause font substitution rendering issues during cross-platform

file sharing and co-authoring.

Office for Mac has switched to a uniform way of writing font names so text will be rendered

correctly regardless of the OS. Previously, Office for Mac wrote “macOS” font names and now, it

writes “Win” font names to be aligned with the behavior in non-macOS Office apps. This way,

any new content will be saved in a consistent manner across platforms.

document font name replacement would be only carried out after any edits are applied to the

document to prevent document modification when there are no changes.

As a result of this change, these updated documents when shared with older Office for Mac

clients (i.e. builds < 16.16.xxx), may not render correctly as they are expecting the traditional

‘macOS’ font names. You can continue to read and edit content; however, the content is

rendered using a substitute font.

Knowledge Base: Fixes and Workarounds – Word for Mac

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UC San Diego Health Information Services