Mac keyboard not working in MS Office after Yosemite upgrade

I recently upgraded to Mac OS X (10.10) Yosemite and really like it so far.  But I’ve come across one problem where my keyboard stopped working in Microsoft Word !

It happened as I’ve been working on my dissertation – talk about bad timing!  Today I change my default font to Times New Roman.  And after that is when the trouble started. I came to the conclusion that it was the font that was causing the problem.

If you haven’t done this in a while, it’s not a bad idea, regardless of whether you have issues with MS Office or not.

1. Make sure MS Office is up to date

In any office app, use the Help Menu and Check for Updates

2. Validate Fonts in Font Book

Macs have a special program for managing fonts called Font Book, located in the Applications folder.  Open Font Book, and validate all of your fonts. To do this, click in the list of fonts, then use the keystroke Command-A, to select all of them.

Then in the file menu, select “Validate Fonts”

After validation, if there are any that turn yellow, those are problems and should be deleted.  I had about 45 duplicate fonts, which is not good.

3. Repair Permissions in Disk Utility

Follow these directions.  (Easy!)

4. Restart your Mac

Hopefully this will help you if you are in a bind.   Good luck!