"MathType Requires a Newer Version of MT Extra" Warning Message

The information in this document applies to:

Issue

When launching MathType 4 or 5, either by itself or from within another application, users receive the following error message:

...despite having successfully installed MathType and even used it previously without receiving an error. Pressing the OK button will allow MathType to run, but a number of important characters will be replaced by empty boxes 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 4.0 and 5.x contains 145 characters,

When MathType 4 or 5 is launched, the program checks the version of MT Extra being used because many of the characters in the new version are used by MathType 4.0 and 5.x's templates and are offered on their palettes. If the older version is installed, the expected characters will be replaced by empty boxes.

To understand this problem, it is important to understand how Windows and Macintosh handle fonts in their Fonts folders. 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 Macintosh, for example, if Word installs all of its fonts into the per-user fonts folder for some reason (maybe an Office reinstallation, etc.), MathType may not find the newer/correct version of MT Extra and the above warning will appear. MathType for Macintosh does list the path to the older MT Extra file, which is helpful as it could be in any of 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 to your word processor, or use the "Detect and Repair" feature that comes with later versions of Microsoft Word, very often these installers will overwrite the version of MT Extra that comes with MathType, resulting in an error message when launching MathType because the newer, enhanced version of MT Extra has been replaced with an older version.

Solution

The simplest way to address this problem is to reinstall MathType. If you downloaded MathType and no longer have the installer, you can download another copy from our Download Page.

If you are familiar with the Fonts Control Panel and the use of Windows Explorer, or the various font locations in OS 9 and X, you could manually install the MathType 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

Note: Because only one copy of MT Extra will be shown in the Fonts Control Panel at a time, you must refresh your fonts list after deleting each copy of it so that if another copy of MT Extra is in your fonts folder, it will appear. It may be necessary to delete and refresh your list a number of times to delete all copies of MT Extra. If another copy of MT Extra appears in your fonts list, the actual file name for the font will be different.

1. Choose Control Panel from the Settings menu of Windows Explorer.
2. Open the Fonts Control Panel.
3. Look for the MT Extra font and delete it.
4. Press F5 to refresh your list of fonts.
5. Look for the MT Extra font again. If it appears, delete it again.
6. Continue steps 3-5 until MT Extra no longer appears in your list of fonts.
7. From the File menu of the Fonts Control Panel, choose "Install new font". There is a copy of the enhanced version of MT Extra in \MathType\Fonts\TrueType.
8. Single-click on MT Extra and click OK.

MT Extra should be installed into your Fonts folder and you should no longer receive an error message when launching MathType.

Macintosh

1. Do a search for MT Extra from the Finder.
2. Delete any copies of this font, except those found in the MathType 5 Fonts folder (you'll need one of them in the next step). Typically, you'll be deleting MT Extra from /Library/Fonts and/or Users/<user>/Library/Fonts in OS X and from System Folder:Fonts in OS 9.
3. Copy the MathType MT Extra font from /MathType 5/Fonts/TrueType and place it in /Library/Fonts.

Since the enhanced MT Extra is now in your OS X Fonts folder you should no longer receive an error message when launching MathType.

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