Microsoft Office 2004: Entourage double messages, SMTP problems; "optimizing fonts" freeze; Spanish dictionary bug

Entourage showing double messages We've received a number of reports of issues where Entourage 2004 downloads multiple copies of email messages. Moises Gonzalez writes: "I am currently using Entourage 2004, and all my e-mails come in doubled."

One of the MacFixIt editors has experienced this issue himself and "fixed" it by deleting the afflicted account and setting it up again.

Entourage problems sending via AT&T SMTP Reader Eric Oshlo reports an issue sending email through AT&T's SMTP servers when using Entourage 2004, along with an interim solution:

"There have been a couple earlier references to potential problems sending email over secure connections with Entourage 2004. This is definitely the case with AT&T when trying to log on to their SMTP server from a DSL or 3rd party ISP connection. There is a note confirming the incompatibility on AT&T 'WURD' website which states 'Note: At this time, Entourage 2004 will not function with AT&T Worldnet through another ISP or DSL.' There is not a problem receiving mail and I did not experience any problems with Entourage X.

"I have been on the phone with both AT&T and Microsoft most of the afternoon and it?s not clear that a resolution is being pursued by either party. The only workaround I?ve found is to install SSL Enabler and configure Entourage?s AT&T account SMTP server entry to point to my internal machine address, thereby letting SSL enabler handle the connection. It gets me by, but hopefully Microsoft will fix whatever caused the problem to arise in Entourage 2004"

"Optimizing fonts" freeze We previously covered reports of slow launch times in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint 2004 due to the "Optimizing font performance" phase of the launch process. Most of those reports noted "long" delays. Randy Jedlink reports that for him the delay was actually quite long:

"I would just like you to know, I too am having the problems where Word, Excel, or PowerPoint 2004 get to the load screen and hang on 'Optimizing font menu performance.' Unfortunately for me, my machine can never get [past] this point, even if left running on that for hours."

In a follow-up email, Randy noted that after leaving his computer on all night, the next morning the process had finally finished. Some readers who had experienced this problem noted that they were also running a font management utility (such as Suitcase); however, Randy has no such utilities running. We suspect that a corrupt font file is the cause.

Word bug using Spanish dictionary Reader Gabriel Dorado reports a very specific problem that only occurs when selecting the Spanish language dictionary in Word 2004:

"If you choose the Custom Dictionary via Word -> Preferences -> Spelling and Grammar -> Dictionaries and then select 'English (USA)' as language, it works fine. Yet, if you set it for the 'Spanish' language (must be that precise language to display the bug), and then you start checking the spelling at Tools ->Spelling and Grammar -- [after designating part of the document as 'Spanish' via Tools -> Language] -- you get the error:

The custom dictionary 'Custom Dictionary' is not available.

"For me this is a 100% consistent bug. Note that the bug is only shown when the custom dictionary is set as "Spanish". If you set it as English (USA) or French for instance, then they work fine."

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