MathType requires a newer version of MT Extra warning message

TechNote 84

Applicability

Issue

When launching MathType 7 either by itself or within another application, users sometimes receive the following error message…

…despite having successfully installed MathType 7 and even used it previously without receiving an error. Pressing the OK button will allow MathType 7 to run, but empty boxes will replace several essential characters in equations.

Reason

The original version of MT Extra, which is still distributed with many word processing, publishing, and test generation programs, contains only 43 characters:

The enhanced version of the MT Extra font included with MathType contains 145 characters:

When MathType 7 is launched, it checks the version of the installed copy of MT Extra extra. If an older version is installed, the expected characters will be replaced by empty boxes.

It is essential to understand how Windows and macOS handle fonts in their Fonts folders to understand this problem. In Windows, if multiple files exist for the same font, only one will be displayed in the Fonts Control Panel. Windows may be using an older version of MT Extra, even though the newer version has been properly installed. On the Mac, if Word happens to install all of its fonts into the per-user fonts folder for some reason (maybe an Office reinstallation, etc.), MathType 7 may not find the newer/correct version of MT Extra, and the above warning will appear. MathType 7 for Mac lists the path to the older MT Extra file, which is helpful as it could be in several places.

If you reinstall or upgrade your word processor, manually install the equation editor that comes with your word processor, install a new program that contains an equation editor, apply a service release or patch or update to your word processor, or use the "Detect and Repair" feature that comes with Microsoft Office, very often these installers will overwrite the version of MT Extra that comes with MathType 7 resulting in an error message when launching MathType 7 because the newer, enhanced version of MT Extra has been replaced with an older version.WS

Solution

The simplest way to address this problem is to reinstall MathType 7 If you downloaded MathType 7 and no longer have the installer, you can download another copy from our Downloads page, but please make sure to download the version you are licensed for. If you are licensed for MathType 6.9 and download MathType 7.4, your product key will not work.

Suppose you are familiar with the Fonts Control Panel and Windows Explorer or the various font locations in macOS. In that case, you could manually install the MathType 7 version of MT Extra after removing extra copies of MT Extra from your system per the instructions below.

Manually installing the MathType version of MT Extra

You can manually install MT Extra, but you should first remove all the copies already installed on your computer.

Windows 8 and later

It's best to have only one copy of a font on your system. In the latest versions of Windows, deleting a font isn't impossible, but doing so is more trouble than necessary. Simply open a File Explorer window, navigate to C:\Program Files\MathType\Fonts\TrueType [for 64-bit Windows it will be C:\Program Files (x86)\MathType\Fonts\TrueType], and double-click mtextra.ttf. In the font preview window, click and answer Yes if it asks you whether you want to replace it.

Windows versions up to Windows 7, 32-bit