I am experiencing a problem using a Postscript and OpenType font in MS Excel,
which is decribed below. Why does this problem occur and is there a way to
correct this?

The Postscript Optima and OpenType Optima LT Std fonts used in our
production department do not work properly in MS Excel 2000 or 2003 on the PC
(with Windows XP). Specifically, when combining the Postscript Optima Oblique
with regular Optima in the same cell, undesirable and uncontrollable spacing
occurs before and after the oblique text. The same thing happens when
combining regular Optima with italic Optima that has been styled with the
italic attribute button. This problem also occurs when using the OpenType
version of Optima.

Excel creates extra space before and after the italicized or oblique text.
This space increases the further out along the line the italic or oblique
text appears. In other words, if an italic word occurs at the end of a long
line of unwrapped text in a single cell, there will be a large amount of
extra space created around it. If it occurs at the beginning of the line,
there will be little extra space created around it.

The solution I found was to use the Mac (OS v10.4.8) with the OpenType
version of Optima in MS Excel version X (v 10, SR1). Converting the text in
Excel to Optima LT Std and manually applying Optima LT Std Italic (from the
font drop-down menu) to the necessary italic words works correctly. Excel
version X on the Mac will not create unexpected extra space in this scenario.
However, this solution only works with the OpenType version of Optima because
similar problems found on the PC (explained above) also occurred on the Mac
using a non-OpenType format of the Optima font.

However, because our department is PC based, we cannot create all of our
tables on the Mac and need help understanding how to use professional
typefaces (in Postscript and OpenType format) in Excel on the PC. We must
produce statistical tables of numbers in Excel for use by the government and
the public and we often import these tables into page-layout programs (via
PDF) to produce reports, therefore we desire greater typographic control.

Thanks for your help!