If you use a particular font in a word document and if the same document is opened in another system in which the particular font is not installed, then the document does not display properly. The missing font is replaced with the closest match(as perceived by the computer) which in reality may not be good enough. Worse still the text using the particular font may not be readable at all.
Most people are aware of this but what they do not seem to be aware of is how to overcome the issue.
One simple way is to avoid any fancy fonts and stick to default Windows fonts which normally would be available in most computers. Another way is to convert the word document into a PDF document which will retain the original fonts, but usually a PDF document is not editable.
There is another way (the reason for this post !!) to overcome the problem. Microsoft Word has a feature to embed any true type font that you may have used in your document. That way when you send the document to another person the fancy font will display properly irrespective of whether the font is installed in that computer or not.
How to embed the fonts?
Create the word document using whatever font you choose to use. Choose ‘Save As’ for saving the file. In the ‘Save As‘ window select Tools > Save Options. In the ‘Save‘ window, under ‘Save options‘ check the Embed TrueType fonts.
You will notice two additional options below it. Selecting ‘Embed character in use only‘ will ensure that only the characters for which you have used the particular font will be embedded in the word document. This is to keep the file size small. Some fonts take up too much space and it is best to use this option and avoid embedding characters that you don’t need or rather haven’t used in the document. The other option is ‘Do not embed common system fonts‘. Selecting this will prevent fonts which are likely to be available in most computers, from being embedded, again to keep file size small.
Finally, press OK and save the file.
Now, you can be pretty sure that the word document will look as you want it to look, on any computer.
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I have experienced the problem of having certain letters altered with other symbols. I don’t know why that happens, but I have to go over every one of the altered characters and replace them with the right one. For example, I use an IPA font letter in a linguistics paper I am writing, but that letter has gotten changed somewhere along the way. I am wondering whether it is because I had to open the document from a flash drive or a CD that I had saved the document on. Anyway, I hope that embedding the fonts helps . Thanks.