This is the list of problems with which we are familiar. You can scan down the page, or click on the title that looks like the problem you are having.
Cannot embed font to make a .pdf
Word 2008 and LinkLetter Workaround
Starting Dot in HWT Manuscript Outlines #5 in Wrong Place
Cursive Letters Look Ragged on a HP9000
Vertical Lines Through the Font Menu in Word 2004
WORD 2004 LinkLetter Doesn't Work Right
OS X "access denied" error when installing fonts
OS X "You do not have sufficient permissions" error when running LinkLetter
Error Type 3 or Computer Hangs Installing Fonts on Mac OS 8.6
Microsoft Word AutoFormatting Problems
Microsoft Word - i Gets Changed to I
Microsoft Word - The First Letter of Every Line Gets Capitalized
Fonts Don't Show Up in Your Word Processor
Printer Error or PostScript Error
Epson USB Inkjet Printers and iMacs
If your downloaded file opens in TextEdit, or you are asked to choose an application to open it, you need a program (StuffIt Expander) to decompress your download, free through Apple. Here is the link to download it:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/system_disk_utilities/stuffitexpander.html
You will be taken to a page where you can either get the free version or buy an expanded version. Your choice. To get the free one, give them a name and your email address and they will send you the download link for StuffIt Expander. StuffIt Expander is a very good thing to have on your system.
If this seems like too much hassle, you can wait for the CD, which will arrive in a couple of days via First Class Mail.
This has happened on both Mac and Windows computers, with a particular batch of CDs from one manufacturer, shipped to our customers in September of 2003.
You put the CD in the drive. You can hear the drive attempting to mount it. You wait and wait for it to show up on your computer. On Windows, if you open My Computer and double-click on the CD drive, My Computer hangs and you have to Ctrl-Alt-Del to end it.
Three people have called with this problem since early April, 2008. We asked them to mail us the CDs. We had the same problems with their CDs on our computers, and then noticed that all of the "bad" CDs have the same set of numbers stamped on the hub. No manufacturer information, but we now know how to identify the bad ones.
If you think you have one of these bad CDs, please call us. Our master CD for September 2003 is still fine (it is on a CD from a different batch), and we can burn you another copy of the same vintage, for no charge.
You may also upgrade (for the normal price) to our latest CD. The major changes that we have made since September 2003 are:
1. Changed to all of our Linkletter programs to handle enhancements Microsoft made in Word 2004 and Word 2008 on the Mac, and Word 2003 Service Pack 3 and Word 2007 for Windows computers.
2. We bought a new installer program and redid all of our installers to run on Windows Vista.
3. Created universal installers and native mode Linkletter programs for the Intel Mac.
4. Added more DN fonts (French, Spanish, and German Cursive).
5. Added another set of HWT Manuscript fonts with a dotted center line on the three rule variations.
6. Added three new families, DK Cursive (left and right handed slant cursive fonts), Queensland (Australia), and CF (Cursive First, copyright of LITHBTH Publishing).
7. Added one Decorative font (EFI Extra Fancy) and several Specialty fonts (Count Dots, Direct Instruction, Music, and four Prewriting Practice variations).
8. Added four Manuscript Phonics fonts to all our Manuscript families (AB, CCU, DN, FS, GDI, HB, HWT, McD, OZ, Palmer, PM, PT, QM, SSD, SV, and ZB).
Fonts contain a code that lets a user of the font embed the font as read-only, as editable, as installable, or must already have the font installed on the target machine. When we went to our newer font editor, the ability to set that code was there, but we were completely unaware of the capability -- or responsibility! Yikes!
If you run into this problem -- cannot embed font due to restrictions in the font -- using InDesign or Quark, or anything else, please contact dave@educationalfontware.com and we will send you an embedable set of fonts. Make sure you tell Dave whether you want Mac or Windows and which font family.
We got Microsoft Office 2008 on January 24, 2008. Microsoft did things again such that LinkLetter does not work, and will require months on our part to fix. We sure hope that you didn't Remove your old word processor when installing Word 2008. We have now, as of April 10, 2008, changed every LinkLetter and UndoLinkLetter to work with Word 2008. The new fonts and programs are available on the Buy Now link, and available as upgrades for a reduced price.
On February 21, a tech person from a school (Jo Russell at Academy of Christian Education) called in and together we found a way to run LinkLetter successfully with Word 2008. When Pasting back in, use Paste Special. That will force Word to read the unformatted Text rather than the Rich Text Format (which is all messed up), and the text will come back in linked together. Formatting will be lost, but at least you can still link text.
If you have a CD dated earlier than October 2007, the starting dot on the number 5 in the HWT Manuscript Outlines, Outlines Rules, and Outlines 3 Rules fonts is in the incorrect place. Oops. If it bugs you, please email us with your school name or home address for a free download link to give you the corrected fonts. Follow the instructions in the download - you will have to remove the incorrect fonts before installing the new ones. *Many Thanks* to OT Vera Johnson for reporting this bug to us.
A customer told us that a problem occurred using the ZB font family with OS 10.4.10 and InDesign CS2, using a HP 9000 laser printer. The linked ZB Cursive words weren't kerned properly, even though the kerning value was set to zero, left justified. The same raggedness occurred in Word using the same printer. When .pdf output was specified, the resulting printout was much improved, but still not perfect, as it should be. We at EFI suspect the HP9000 printer driver, because our HP8000 works perfectly with the same programs.
This problem has happened to a few users who are running Word 2004 on Mac OS 10.4 with our HWT Cursive fonts installed.
When you want to select a font from the font list, there are heavy vertical bars through the fonts names in most of the fonts that begin with the letter H and in many of the font names through the rest of the alphabet. The problem only happens when you are viewing the font names in the fonts themselves (WYSIWYG). It seems that the problem occurs only on Power PC iBooks that came with Office 2004 test drive pre-installed. If you have the problem and can provide any more information, please contact us.
We have not been able to reproduce the problem on any of our OS10.4 computers (including an Intel eBook, OS 10.4.6, Office 2004 pre-installed), and have asked for assistance from Apple.
Meanwhile, you can avoid the problem by turning off WYSIWYG:
1. In Word 2004, click the Word menu item
2. Click Preferences.
3. Click the General tab.
4. Uncheck "WYSIWYG font and style menus."
5. Click OK.
In Word 2004, Microsoft has changed what gets written to the clipboard when you copy or cut the text. As a result, our LinkLetter and UndoLinkLetter programs no longer correctly linked and unlinked the text.
We have redone all of our Mac fonts and OS X Linkletter and Undo LinkLetter. We shipped the first CD with the fixes on September 13, 2004. If you have an older EFI product and are having a problem with Word 2004, please call us to get a new CD. 1-800-806-2155
To install our fonts when using MacManager, you need to be logged on as an administrator.
If you are running OS 9 or earlier, and will be using one of our cursive fonts, you won't be able to access the LinkLetter and UndoLinkletter programs (because they are in the Apple Menu Items). Just copy them to someplace that they can be used, such as the Applications folder or the Desktop.
If you are not logged on as an administrator when running an OS9_X installer on OS X, you will get an "access denied" error message.
In early 2004, three schools got an "access denied" error message installing our fonts on some of their OS X computers. The CD now has a third Mac installer folder, OS auth 9_X, that avoids these problems. These installers require authentication when running on OS X.
If you still get this error message when running an OS auth 9_X installer, it is possible that the permissions need to be repaired. See the Apple web site (www.apple.com) for information about repairing permissions.
When using Mac OS X 10.2 and later, you can use the Capabilities feature in the User Accounts to restrict which applications a non-admin user can run. You check the applications that you want the user to be able to use. If the check box will not stay checked, you need to get a new CD from us. CDs dated June 15 2004 or later have the correction.
If you have an OS 8.6 computer,
- you get an error type 3 when the installation completes, or
the computer freezes/hangs,
- and you are running one of our installers with a date of 01/16/03
or later,
everything should have been installed correctly, but you need
to verify.
Restart your computer to make sure. To test, open your word processor, and select one of the Manuscript fonts you have just installed. Type your name. Look OK? Good.
Even if you are not going to be using cursive, make sure it installed correctly. Select one of the Cursive fonts you have just installed, and type your name again. The letters will not be correctly linked, so follow the procedure on page 5 of the User Guide to verify that the Linkletter program installed correctly.
Please call us to report your problem, even if everything is correctly installed (1-800-806-2155). We want to file a problem report with the company that makes the program we use to make the installers, and need more information about the hardware configuration of computers that have this problem. Thank you.
Microsoft Word 98 and higher (Word 2000, 2001, X) have a feature called AutoFormat, which automatically changes some of what you type. Unfortunately, this feature causes problems, particularly with our ruled fonts.
If you get underlines instead of blank rules, some words become italic (even though you didn't type them in italic), or words unexpectedly end up bold, you have been done in by this feature.
Because of the problems with blank rules, we added another way to make blank rules starting in August 2003. If you have one of our newer CDs, we suggest that you use the bar character (|, shift backslash, above the Enter or return key on your keyboard) instead of the underscore character (shift minus) for blank rules.
To turn off AutoFormat:
1. On the Format menu, click AutoFormat.
2. Click Options.
3. Click the "AutoFormat As You Type" tab, and uncheck
*Bold* and _italic_ with real formatting and Symbol characters
(--) with symbols (-).
4. Click the "AutoFormat" tab, and uncheck this occurence
of *Bold* and _italic_ with real formatting and Symbol
characters (--) with symbols (-).
5. Click OK, close Word, and reopen Word.
If you are still having problems, open Word Help, and read topics dealing with AutoFormat. Or call us. 1-800-806-2155
Every time that you try to type the single letter i, it gets changed to a capital I. You've encountered the "helpful" Microsoft Word AutoCorrect feature.
To turn it off:
1. On the Format menu, click AutoFormat.
2. Click Options.
3. Click the AutoCorrect tab, and scroll down the left column
until you find i (which is replaced by I).
4. Click the i, and click Delete.
You've encountered another Microsoft Word AutoCorrect feature. Microsoft programmers really don't understand spelling lists.
To turn it off:
1. On the Format menu, click AutoFormat.
2. Click Options.
3. Click the AutoCorrect tab.
4. Unckeck Capitalize first letter of sentences.
If you install an EFI Teacher Pack and the fonts don't show up in your word processor, there are several possible reasons:
1. You have "too many" font suitcases installed on your computer. On the Mac operating systems, the limit is 128 font suitcases. A suitcase is a file in the System folder/Fonts directory that has one or many fonts included in it. Open System folder, then Fonts. Change the View to List (or Name). The number of items should appear across the top. If it is greater than 128, you may have problems.The solution is to delete some of the fonts that you no longer use by dragging them out of the Fonts directory.
2. The fonts somehow didn't get into System folder/Fonts. The installer program we gave you should have done this correctly - if it didn't, give us a call. Open the Fonts folder and look. Our suitcases begin with the 2-3 letter font name, followed by Cursive or Manuscript. If you never, ever, plan on using Manuscript (or Cursive), you can Trash the suitcase to make room. You can always reinstall.
3. You may have more than one System folder, and have booted off one that doesn't have the fonts installed in it. Reinstall into this System folder.
This typically happens on an inkjet printer when you are trying
to print a document that has a lot of different fonts of different
sizes. The printer driver program doesn't have enough memory to
contain all the fonts. You can either reduce the number of different
fonts that you are using, or try printing fewer pages at a time.
The Epson 740 USB printer driver is limited to point sizes of 48 and under, particularly when rendering the fonts with Rules. The upper line gets dropped, and there is nothing either you or we can do about it. Epson was notified in April 1998 of this problem and may have fixed it. They were totally unresponsive to acknowleging the problem or fixing it. We recommend that people use or buy a different printer, if possible.