Word 2016: "Word cannot display the selected font."

[Sundog]

I have a Word document sent to me using Proxima font. I converted all fonts to Calibri. When I try to print the document, I get a Word message as shown in the Attachment. Word tries to print the document using Proxima. I have restarted the printer, restarted Word in Safe Mode, still no joy.

[Rudi]

Take the following with a pinch of salt as I'm no expert here and it's untested/unverified.

A few websites mention that if you close Word completely, rename your Normal.dotm template and then restart Word, this will fix the issue. Word would then recreate a new Normal.dotm. Note that if you have any customization on your current Normal.dotm, these probably will not transfer to the newly created one.

If you want to try it do the following:

1. Close Word completely
2. Press Win+R to open the run dialog
3. Type: %appdata%
4. Double click the Microsoft folder
5. Double click Templates
6. Rename Normal.dotm to anything else (eg: Old.dotm)
7. Restart Word
8. Open the problematic document

If necessary, the process can be reversed by deleting the new Normal.dotm and simply renaming Old.dot, back to Normal.dotm.

[Sundog]

...close Word completely, rename your Normal.dotm template and then restart Word, this will fix the issue. Word would then recreate a new Normal.dotm.

Doesn't work for me. I now have no Normal.dotm on my system. Will try repairing Word using its own tool.

[Sundog]

Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2016 window now tells me:
"Configuration Process"
Green Bar completely fills long rectangular box
"Repairing Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2016..."

But this window has not changed for around 30 minutes, ever since the green progress bar finished.

Going to bed now, will leave everything running and will check again in the AM.

[Rudi]

Lets hope the repair did something beneficial.

Other 2 cents suggestions to if repair failed:
- switch to a different printer (print driver) in Word and see if this allows printing
- copy the content to a blank new word document and see if it prints
- out of interest, would it print from WordPad
- can you print it from a different PC

[Charles Kenyon]

Repair can take a while, yes.
You can go back and rename your normal.dotm back to normal.dotm.
Word will create a new one when you make any change that is stored in normal.dotm. In the meantime, it just uses its defaults.

[Sundog]

No change at 7 AM. Tried to cancel setup, now window says "Canceling setup..." but it hasn't changed in 9 hours.

What would be a simple change that would cause a regenerated Normal.dotm?

[HansV]

You could make a small change to the Normal style and specify that it should be applied to "New documents based on this template".

S2124.png

Or start recording a macro, and stop recording without actually doing anything in between.

S2125.png

A new Normal.dotm should be created/saved when you quit Word.

[Sundog]

Excellent. Thanks all.

[Charles Kenyon]

Again, if renaming the normal.dotm did not help, you should simply rename it back. It is a repository of a number of customizations.

[macropod]

If you're still getting the "Word cannot display the selected font." message, try closing all apps then clearing out the Temp folder:
C:\Users\%Username%\AppData\Local\Temp