Messed up my fonts

[dcv]

Ooops!

I was playing around with FontBook and Linotype FontExplorer X last night and perhaps I've deactivated one too many fonts. I just noticed that my dictionary widget is screwed up. Any idea what font this should be? Is there a list of "system" fonts somewhere that I shouldn't touch? Thanks.

View attachment 62842

 

[MacBoobsPro]

Ooops!

I was playing around with FontBook and Linotype FontExplorer X last night and perhaps I've deactivated one too many fonts. I just noticed that my dictionary widget is screwed up. Any idea what font this should be? Is there a list of "system" fonts somewhere that I shouldn't touch? Thanks.

View attachment 62842

I think its meant to be baskerville. I might be wrong though. Not sure how to correct the systems fonts after you have fudged them. I did a work around though when it happened to me.

I matched my font setting with my MacBook and all was fine again. Moral of the story. Dont deactivate system fonts Honestly though there should be a safety catch to stop you from doing it.

 

[dcv]

My Baskerville fonts are all activated


Oh god, what have I done?

 

[MacBoobsPro]

My Baskerville fonts are all activated


Oh god, what have I done?

Its not baskerville then

If you have seriously fudged your fonts you may find your iLife apps dont open. They just bounce in the dock.

Maybe you could run a combo update to reinstall them?

 

[dcv]

iLife apps seem fine, the only thing I've noticed that's wrong (so far) is the Dictionary widget.

My last backup was 2 weeks ago, think I might just copy my latest files to a safe place and restore from that backup. And not mess around with so many fonts again! Thanks anyway

 

[MacBoobsPro]

iLife apps seem fine, the only thing I've noticed that's wrong (so far) is the Dictionary widget.

My last backup was 2 weeks ago, think I might just copy my latest files to a safe place and restore from that backup. And not mess around with so many fonts again! Thanks anyway

Sorry. I meant run a combo update of OSX to reinstall the fonts, not the iLife apps.

 

[gekko513]

The Dictionary.css file in the Dictionary widget also mentions the fonts TimesNewRomanPSMT, TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT and Helvetica Neue... and in DictionaryData.css there's also Lucida Grande.

Have you tried to refresh the widget by hitting cmd+R when it's selected?

 

[iMeowbot]

Here are the standard Tiger fonts.

If it appears that all the important stuff is present, there are two more things to try:

1. Search for any locally installed fonts with names that might interfere with the stock ones. See if the problem goes away once they are disabled.

2. Clear out the font caches by trashing everything underneath /Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS (this requires a restart).

 

[dcv]

The Dictionary.css file in the Dictionary widget also mentions the fonts TimesNewRomanPSMT, TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT and Helvetica Neue... and in DictionaryData.css there's also Lucida Grande.

Have you tried to refresh the widget by hitting cmd+R when it's selected?

I just checked and it looks like all of those are activated. I thought you were on to something when you mentioned Helvetica Neue as that is one I was messing around with yesterday and I thought I may have switched off the italic fonts... but no, they all seem to be active.

Just tried refreshing the widget/adding it again and same problem.


MacboobsPro - by "combo update" do you mean this?

 

[MacBoobsPro]

I just checked and it looks like all of those are activated. I thought you were on to something when you mentioned Helvetica Neue as that is one I was messing around with yesterday and I thought I may have switched off the italic fonts... but no, they all seem to be active.

Just tried refreshing the widget/adding it again and same problem.


MacboobsPro - by "combo update" do you mean this?

Yes. Yes I do.

It will reinstall 10.4.8 and so put your system files back as they should be (including fonts) so you may have to fiddle with a few system prefs afterwards to get stuff how you like it. No biggie though at least everything will work.

 

[dcv]

Here are the standard Tiger fonts.

If it appears that all the important stuff is present, there are two more things to try:

1. Search for any locally installed fonts with names that might interfere with the stock ones. See if the problem goes away once they are disabled.

2. Clear out the font caches by trashing everything underneath /Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS (this requires a restart).

Ooooo thanks that looks really helpful. Just a quick scan of that shows that Comic Sans (one that I turned off) is under "essential system software" so there's bound to be something else in that list that I somehow managed to switch off. Oops!

I'll have a proper look through that list and try clearing the caches etc. Think I might copy some recent files over to my iMac before I do anything though... *just in case*

 

[MacBoobsPro]

Good work iMeowbot

 

[iMeowbot]

Nothing should truly break without Comic sans

I see that the Apple tech note has sorta kinda ambiguous language. By "cannot be disabled" they really mean that installation is forced. The fonts that you really want to always leave enabled are the ones in /System/Library/Fonts

The gut feeling is that the cache thing may be the problem, that one is fairly common.

 

[dcv]

I think I have everything in /System/Library/Fonts but looks as though I'm missing a couple from /Library/Fonts. D'oh! I've uninstalled that Linotype thing and I've cleared the caches, restarted etc, still got that problem with the widget. Gonna try running that combo update now...

 

[dcv]

Aaaarrrgh!

Ran the 10.4.8 update again and nothing's changed

I think I might have to restore from backup or is it enough to just copy the contents of the /library/fonts from a previous backup, or even my iMac?

 

[AdeFowler]

The dictionary widget definitely uses baskerville.dfont

It should me in Library>Fonts at the top level of your hard drive.

In Font Explorer under Tools there's an option to clean system caches; give that a go.

Fonts could do with a real makeover in Leopard.

 

[dcv]

Yes, I have baskerville.dfont in library/fonts

Could it be that I have conflicting or duplicate fonts in user/library/fonts or something?

 

[Blue Velvet]

Can't you use Pacifist to extract what you need from your install discs?

Hope that Font Explorer will go back on when you've got it sorted it out.

In Suitcase, there are preferences that enable you to choose not to manage system fonts, maybe there's something like that in the Linotype app, however I suspect that it's something that FontBook has screwed up.

Fonts: a minefield for the unwary.

 

[dcv]

Hope that Font Explorer will go back on when you've got it sorted it out.

Yeah it will. Once it's all sorted out and I've taken a fresh backup

I was messing in FontBook, then I was messing in FontExplorer... I think I've removed/deactivated a little too much!

Gonna go and see what fonts I have on my iMac that are missing from the BabyBook™.

Is it safe to trash the stuff in user/library/fonts?

 

[iMeowbot]

Is it safe to trash the stuff in user/library/fonts?

If you mean underneath your home folder, sure (or just move 'em all to another folder for now, then you can test them one by one when you feel like it)

 

[Blue Velvet]

Is it safe to trash the stuff in user/library/fonts?

Just move them temporarily to a folder on the desktop, log out and log back in and see what happens.

 

[MacBoobsPro]

Is fontexplorer a 3rd party doodar?

if it is it maybe conflicting with Fontbook. Personally I would take fontexplorer off and just use fontbook.

 

[dcv]

Just move them temporarily to a folder on the desktop, log out and log back in and see what happens.

OK will give that a go

Is fontexplorer a 3rd party doodar?

if it is it maybe conflicting with Fontbook. Personally I would take fontexplorer off and just use fontbook.

Yes, Linotype FontExplorer X. I uninstalled it earlier on though and I removed all the additional files, plugins etc and emptied trash (and first of all told it not to be the default font handler anymore)

 

[Blue Velvet]

Is fontexplorer a 3rd party doodar?

if it is it maybe conflicting with Fontbook. Personally I would take fontexplorer off and just use fontbook.

FontExplorer is a solid app used by many graphics pros; FontBook is not. Can't stand it personally and it's useless for managing large collections of fonts.

 

[dcv]

Aha!

Clearing out that user/library/fonts folder seems to have done the trick. w00t!

I haven't even restarted yet but I refreshed the widget after moving the files - and after a little whirring, the normal font has returned.

So I guess there must have been some weird flavour of Baskerville that was conflicting with the system one (??)


Thanks everyone for your help


I think I'll grab whichever files are missing from Library/Fonts from the iMac, tidy up a little, *back up* and start again...