If you have any of the Microsoft Office v. X components (Excel, PowerPoint, Word) crashing when they are launched, especially when displaying the "optimizing font menu performance" message, it is worth checking the fonts you have installed. This usually happens when you have a Mac OS 9 system installed and is usually caused by fonts in the System Folder for Mac OS 9.
Try following these steps...
1
Find the active Classic folder (check using the Classic Preference Pane if you have more than one Mac OS 9 on your disks). This folder is usually called "System Folder" and is on the startup hard disk.
2
Shut down the Classic environment (if it is running) from the Classic Preference Pane.
3
Create a new folder in the System Folder called "Fonts (Disabled)" and drag all the fonts into it.
4
Launch an Office program. If it runs you have discovered the source of the problem, so continue with the next step. If it still crashes its not caused by fonts so you can move them all back to the "Fonts" folder and try something else.
5
Quit the Office program and drag the first half of the fonts back to the "Fonts" folder. Run the program again. If it crashed the damaged font is in the first half. Continue moving fonts around until you find the one causing the fault. You should discard any damaged fonts found this way.
Note that when I say "damaged" fonts I am simplifying what is really happening. If you move half the fonts around at a time it doesn't take long to find the problem, even if you have many fonts installed - a classic computer science answer to this sort of problem (well actually, my preferred answer would be to not use Microsoft programs, but I have assumed that's not an option :)
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