inconsistent font setting behaviour

[Nicolas Cueto]

A standalone is having problems displaying font sizes and lineheight.

It's running on six computers of mine -- all Win2K, all the same PC
maker (Dell) and all bearing the same or very similar model number
(Optiplex GX240/260, with version numbers and date of manufacturer
slightly different). I also used Windows' "Textpad" to confirm that
the required fonts are installed in and accessible by all 6 machines.

Here's the problem. Only half of the machines display the text of the
standalone as expected. In the others the text in the various fields
is not visible. (Again, the machines' maker and model numbers are nigh
the same.)

So, to fix this, at first I tried adjusting the default font-related
settings of the stack and the card. But, no change. So, next, to get
more details about what's happening behind the scenes, I re-worked the
stack to include buttons that allow me to fine-adjust font size,
lineheight and font name of the various fields. By nudging the text
settings up and down this way, the text in fields will appear or
disappear depending on the fine-adjustment. It seems to depend on the
odd/even nature of the textsize/lineheigh number.

Also, even though the text is set to be centered, when it appears it
does so as if it were right-adjusted. In fact, the smaller the width
of the field, the more difficult it is to get the text in that field
to appear using the fine-adjustments.

Finally, even if I change the fontname, the look of the font in all of
the text fields remains unchanged.

As I say though, the weird thing is that on three of the other
near-similar PCs, the standalone's text appears exactly as expected.

Any thoughts or similar experiences?

Thank you.

--
Nicolas Cueto