The other day, I received a Windows Update notification that Service Pack 3 (SP3) was available for download. It was mid-afternoon and the sweet, powerful aroma of coffee brewing in the pantry wafted to my cubicle — beckoning, tempting me like… Anyway, I decided to take a break and install SP3. After two-and-a-half cups of coffee (about 30 minutes in time unit), the installation process was completed and my computer allowed me to work again.
I went straight back to what I was doing before — updating a not-so-usable user guide using Adobe FrameMaker. When I tried to update the cross-references in the user guide, I got an error message that the book could not be updated because Arial Black was missing. (Yes, we’re using Arial Black in our template. At least it’s not Comic Sans.) Arial Black is part of the default font pack that is installed with Windows, so I was pretty sure I had it on my computer. Wanting to be sure, I checked C:\WINDOWS\Fonts and verified that the Arial Black font file (ariblk.ttf) was indeed there.
It could only be SP3 that caused this, I thought, so I did some digging. True enough, a few other people were encountering the same issue and were posting on the Microsoft forums. Apparently, SP3 installs new versions of some of the font files, including Arial Black, Impact, and Tahoma. The new version of the Arial Black font file has some problems, which is why I and some other people were getting error messages on the various applications that we were using. Some people reported that Arial Black looked “weird” in Microsoft Word, while others who were working with Web pages said that Arial Black bold appeared as italicized.
Regardless of the symptoms, there is only one quick fix — replace the problem font file. Get a copy of the old Arial Black font file and replace the one that is currently in C:\WINDOWS\Fonts. Here are the steps:
- Open Windows Explorer.
- Go to
C:\WINDOWS\$NtServicePackUninstall$. - Look for
ariblk.ttf(with the timestamp 8/4/2004 6:00 PM). - Copy it, and then paste it in
C:\WINDOWS\Fonts. This will replace the new Arial Black font file (with timestamp 1/2/2007 8:00 PM).
That’s it. Problem solved. Arial Black should now appear as it should — ugly.
The old Arial Black font file has the timestamp 8/4/2004 6:00 PM.
